Euthanasia and the Right to Die.

[eFestivals]

1. you've shown you don't know the laws about suicide.

2. you've shown you don't know the laws about murder.

3. you've shown you know nothing of Tony N's court case.

4. you've shown that you think the disabled as subhuman beings, without the same right to self as the abled.

5. all based on your empty prejudices.

[eFestivals]

for 1 (above):-

here's the law that legalised suicide:

http://en.wikipedia....uicide_Act_1961

here's the religious reasons - the only reasons - for why there's been laws against suicide.

http://en.wikipedia....ide_legislation

For 2 (above):-

For how the UK operates its murder laws - including how those who assist suicide are not prosecuted - refer to newspapers over the last ten years.

For 3, 4 & 5 (above), just read back on your own posts worm.

Edited September 6, 2012 by eFestivals

[feral chile]

Being the fencesitter I am, i can see both sides. On the one hand, it's our life, we can do what we like with it.

But on the other... what's stopping a state depriving people of help, cutting services to the disabled and those in dire need, driving them to desperation, then enshrining their right to put themselves out of their misery and calling it personal choice? Thus, of course, relieving the state of the responsibility of sorting out social and economic problems.

The right to die could mask a lot of social injustice and callous disregard of civic responsibility, by turning the world into a very hostile place for the vulnerable, and instead of supporting them into a better life, supporting (cheating) them out of one at all.

Edited September 6, 2012 by feral chile

[eFestivals]

But on the other... what's stopping a state depriving people of help...

People.

People can either :-

1. support the disabled as much as possible to live a life as near to what an abled person can do

2. or they can decide they don't give a fuck about them, and subject them to the sorts of things you said.

3. or they can decide that disabled people are too stupid to have the same choices and fulfilment of those choices as the abled, and make their choices for them.

Society is currently settled on 3, and with that is showing just how little meaning all the positive words said about disabled people mean in reality.

There would be no danger to other disabled people if society via the courts had granted Tony N his wish.

This is beyond all doubt, because what Tony was asking for is already in operation in this country and is sanctioned by society and by the operation of the law as acceptable.

The only difference here was that Tony was explicitly saying what he wished to do, and by doing so personalised the issue around him.

The right to die could mask a lot of social injustice and callous disregard of civic responsibility, by turning the world into a very hostile place for the vulnerable, and instead of supporting them into a better life, supporting (cheating) them out of one at all.

the fact that we already have that "right to die" gets to show that all the fears you state are false, not applicable, and are worthy only of the Daily Mail.

Just like worm, you are trying to fit the facts into your dogma via a falsification of the facts, and are not addressing the REAL facts.

[feral chile]

People.

People can either :-

1. support the disabled as much as possible to live a life as near to what an abled person can do

2. or they can decide they don't give a fuck about them, and subject them to the sorts of things you said.

3. or they can decide that disabled people are too stupid to have the same choices and fulfilment of those choices as the abled, and make their choices for them.

Society is currently settled on 3, and with that is showing just how little meaning all the positive words said about disabled people mean in reality.

There would be no danger to other disabled people if society via the courts had granted Tony N his wish.

This is beyond all doubt, because what Tony was asking for is already in operation in this country and is sanctioned by society and by the operation of the law as acceptable.

The only difference here was that Tony was explicitly saying what he wished to do, and by doing so personalised the issue around him.

the fact that we already have that "right to die" gets to show that all the fears you state are false, not applicable, and are worthy only of the Daily Mail.

Just like worm, you are trying to fit the facts into your dogma via a falsification of the facts, and are not addressing the REAL facts.

Edited September 7, 2012 by feral chile

[eFestivals]

I haven't decided, because I can see both sides of the argument.

until you're working from the facts and not fiction I don't see how you can.

The worries you express are an irrelevance. If they were meaningful, then the current right to die - which exists, it's a falsehood to say it doesn't (unless talking about *just* Tony!) - would already see those things happening.

(it might be the case that on occasion they are happening of course .... but no one is making the same noise about the fact they might be as was made to stop Tony following thru on his choice - a choice which is nothing to do with those worries anyway; no one was trying to force him to die. That fact of it being without-doubt his choice makes the situation around him 100% different to any other scenario).

I've also been in a situation where my indecision has made me very ill, because my choice to do nothing was equivalent to coming down on the legal side of the argument, and there was subsequently a great deal of suffering on my conscience

that's completely irrelevant; that's simply life.

Anyway, Tony's choice was not making him ill. It was the fact that he was being denied the choice that is freely available to the abled which was causing him all of his distress.

In practice, this is a horrendous and momentous decision to make, and it takes real courage to take steps to end suffering. This isn't even considering the legal aspects/consequences.

It is a horrendous and momentous decision to make. That aside, it's a decision all people are free to make, but only the abled are free to follow thru on.

Tony had made his decision, and no one doubted that he was sane and mentally able to make his considered choice, or that it was *his* choice.

But they refused to give him the same right to follow thru on his choice as the abled are free to do.

This could have been done without any on-going legal consequences. It's easy enough to set-up a system whereby any case is considered on a individual basis, where the disabled person has to jump thru an amount of hoops. The hoops provide the safeguard against abuse, while still allowing him the same right to follow thru on his choice as is available to the abled.

But with regard to the ruling the court made against the benchmark of the current laws of murder, they worked from the letter of the law and not how the law is implemented in practice - and so failed Tony by twisting the truth. It was not an honest judgement.

[feral chile]

It's not just disabled people who lose autonomy - when my father was terminally ill, the first official notification of this was when his consultant phoned me and asked if I wanted him resuscitated if his heart failed. Asked me, mind you, not my completely conscious father who hadn't yet been given a prognosis.

[feral chile]

that's completely irrelevant; that's simply life.

Edited September 7, 2012 by feral chile

[eFestivals]

It's not just disabled people who lose autonomy - when my father was terminally ill, the first official notification of this was when his consultant phoned me and asked if I wanted him resuscitated if his heart failed. Asked me, mind you, not my completely conscious father who hadn't yet been given a prognosis.

That's not good, but it's a completely different thing, and one that is exceedingly hard to rectify.

Tony's situation could have been easily rectified, had there been the official will to do it - but they ran scared of the religious lobby.

Edited September 7, 2012 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

How is it irrelevant? It was exactly this scenario.

some people are always going to get stressed over some decisions of any kind.

There was no issues being raised about Tony's decision - there was full acceptance that it was his sane and considered decision for quite rational reasons.

The issue was his non-ability to carry out his decision.

Also, with my father, again I was given power over someone else's life that I didn't want.

the opposite of tony then.

(I've been there and done that too. No matter how painful, I think we know the right answer in our hearts).

It's all very well saying people should have the right to assisted suicide, but the one doing the assisting then becomes the one who decides another person's fate, by either agreeing to it or not.

I think Tony was hopeful that a doctor would be permitted to help him - and of course not under any force to do it against their will.

Doctors are doing just the thing he wanted anyway, daily. That's not meant as any slur, just the statement of fact that some doctors act in a more caring way in regard to the patient's wishes than they might strictly be allowed in law.

oh, and just because something's not illegal it doesn't mean it's sanctioned by the state. Alcoholism and addiction's legal. It just means that the state has decided not to punish people for going through a bad time.

If there's never been legislation then you're right. When there is legislation to specifically make something legal that was previously illegal then that is no less sanctioned by the state as any speed limit law.

I'll try to stop using the word 'right' tho. The 'freedom' to commit suicide is perhaps a better way of putting it.

[feral chile]

some people are always going to get stressed over some decisions of any kind.

I think Tony was hopeful that a doctor would be permitted to help him - and of course not under any force to do it against their will.

Doctors are doing just the thing he wanted anyway, daily. That's not meant as any slur, just the statement of fact that some doctors act in a more caring way in regard to the patient's wishes than they might strictly be allowed in law.

Edited September 7, 2012 by feral chile

[worm]

Doctors are doing just the thing he wanted anyway, daily. That's not meant as any slur, just the statement of fact that some doctors act in a more caring way in regard to the patient's wishes than they might strictly be allowed in law.

[eFestivals]

We're not God

except we are. We are a god unto ourselves. We each have the power of god, over whether we live or die.

It's only the likes of Tony who is not that god, by a freak of nature or accident, or whatever it was that caused him to be 'locked in'. He saw his once very active life as now purposeless, and a destructor of other people's lives.

He is allowed to think that way.

If he were like you and me, he woúld be allowed to act on his thoughts. It is only his disability that stopped him doing so.,

, and unfortunately, for those unable to do it themselves, they have to pass that decision onto someone else. Because the person who helps will feel totally responsible for that person's fate. Autonomy for the suicide is removed, no matter what, because the decision to help then becomes the issue of someone else. So they have to play God with someone else's fate.

and doctors are very used to playing god with people's fate. It's what they do every day.

Some of those doctors believe that a wish such as Tony's should be respected and acted on, and would be willing to help him with his wish.

It was only the people who who had no direct involvement with Tony who wanted to play god over him, as an exercise of their power (or of their stupidity). That's the only place that people were playing god, with them saying that Tony had less rights than they had themselves.

[eFestivals]

And this would mean setting a precedence by law, which would involve the animation of suicide clinics and a suicide industry and all the apparatus involved.

no it wouldn't.... unless you want to point me in the direction of the Sunday shopping clinics that must exist by the same logic.

And there is more than one way to write a law. No future-risky precedence needs be set.

[feral chile]

except we are. We are a god unto ourselves. We each have the power of god, over whether we live or die.

It's only the likes of Tony who is not that god, by a freak of nature or accident, or whatever it was that caused him to be 'locked in'. He saw his once very active life as now purposeless, and a destructor of other people's lives.

He is allowed to think that way.

If he were like you and me, he woúld be allowed to act on his thoughts. It is only his disability that stopped him doing so.,

and doctors are very used to playing god with people's fate. It's what they do every day.

Some of those doctors believe that a wish such as Tony's should be respected and acted on, and would be willing to help him with his wish.

It was only the people who who had no direct involvement with Tony who wanted to play god over him, as an exercise of their power (or of their stupidity). That's the only place that people were playing god, with them saying that Tony had less rights than they had themselves.

Edited September 7, 2012 by feral chile

[worm]

no it wouldn't.... unless you want to point me in the direction of the Sunday shopping clinics that must exist by the same logic.

And there is more than one way to write a law. No future-risky precedence needs be set.

Edited September 7, 2012 by worm

[worm]

Two doctors must be involved in Belgium, and the Netherlands, plus a psychologist if there are doubts about the patient's competency. But that is not stipulated in Switzerland, although at least a doctor usually is because the right-to-die societies insist on medical certification of terminality before assisting.

Belgium and the Netherlands permit voluntary euthanasia, but Switzerland bans death by injection, and all have 'residents only' rules, except Switzerland which alone does not bar foreigners provided they are critically, terminally ill. In 2001 the Swiss National Council confirmed the assisted suicide law but kept the prohibition of euthanasia.

All three right-to-die organizations in Switzerland help terminally ill people to die by providing counselling and lethal drugs. Police are always informed.

[eFestivals]

You would need regulation as to the diagnosis of legitimate suicide cases. You would need regulation as to the well-being of the person carrying out the suicide. You would need humane measures to make sure the procedure was carried out properly. Etc.

This would then be applicable to everyone. The state sanctioning suicide means that the state is responsible for it being carried out. It means being responsible for every person who takes their life. It means making certain types of suicide illegal.

The case that Tony got heard at the High Court gets to prove all of this as completely wrong. There is no doubt about this.

And so, yet again, you get to prove that all you say here is driven by your prejudices and not the provable facts.

[eFestivals]

This is why I sit on the fence, because whether you deny the help or agree to it, it's not the potential suicide who ultimately decides.

I don't think the state treats disabled people differently though, it's just that able bodied people are physically able to do it.

there's without a doubt a conflict between legislation that exists about enabling disabled people, and the law of murder.

However, the law of murder is written in a way that it's not implemented in practice, and so there's a conflict within the legal profession about the law of murder - which needs to be addressed before it's possible to hear Tony's case in a consistent, and so meaningful, manner.

If the conflict between the letter of the law and the law in practice regarding murder was addressed, there's no doubt it would come down on the side of practice. The issues around Tony wanting to be "murdered" then go away.

The state would, and does, intervene to save lives if there's an attempted suicide. The authorities don't just stand back and say let's wait for that overdose to do its job. You get your stomach pumped and probably a visit from a shrink.

"the state" does NOT intervene; standard medical ethics do. But there's lots of caveats around that which can cause standard medical ethics to NOT intervene. "Saving lives" is NOT an inalterable top-level power of the medical profession that they act for above anything else, both in practice AND in their ethical code.

The "visit from a shrink" just gets to show how entrenched some baseless prejudices are - because without doubt they ARE baseless. No one is able to demonstrate with any substance (ONLY their prejudices) that a person shouldn't be able to end their life if they wish.

[eFestivals]

Two doctors must be involved in Belgium, and the Netherlands, plus a psychologist if there are doubts about the patient's competency. But that is not stipulated in Switzerland, although at least a doctor usually is because the right-to-die societies insist on medical certification of terminality before assisting.

Belgium and the Netherlands permit voluntary euthanasia, but Switzerland bans death by injection, and all have 'residents only' rules, except Switzerland which alone does not bar foreigners provided they are critically, terminally ill. In 2001 the Swiss National Council confirmed the assisted suicide law but kept the prohibition of euthanasia.

All three right-to-die organizations in Switzerland help terminally ill people to die by providing counselling and lethal drugs. Police are always informed.

just because those countries have enacted their laws in that method doesn't mean that the UK has to follow suit.

It's perfectly possible within how English law operates currently for there to be no need for any change in the law, for a start.

But anyway, what you've laid out there is nothing of what you've been banging on about. It is not state control, it is a version of medical ethics, of little difference to the medical ethics as practised in Britain, of a patient having a right to a second option (to ensure there's nothing amiss with the diagnosis) - the 2nd doctor simply ensures that there's nothing amiss with the view of the 1st doctor; in Tony's case that role was played by the court that heard his case.

[worm]

just because those countries have enacted their laws in that method doesn't mean that the UK has to follow suit.

Edited September 10, 2012 by worm

[eFestivals]

'That' method?

What it illustrates is that there are definite impacts on each nation's society and its laws. This is what I've been inviting you to explore if you truly stand by your principle. But you haven't. You've gone so far as saying 'I reckon this is morally right and there's nothing else to discuss', when there clearly is.

If you change any law there's an impact on a nation's society and laws. Do you have anything to say which isn't a tautology?

There's more than one way to write and implement any law. It's wholly dependent on how a law is written and implemented for which effects that new law might have onto a society.

So as such, nothing of what you say is of any meaning without you also documenting what exact law is brought in to give those effects ... at which point you can dismiss the law being written in the way you state, and you then have nothing to say.

----

And anyway, what you are missing from all of your considerations are the facts of what's going on in reality in the UK.

Do people currently assist others to die? Yes.

Do people currently assist people like Tony in the exact way he was suggesting? Yes.

Do those realities have any of those effects? Nope.

Just because you might dream up some problems doesn't mean you have any point with those invented problems. What matters is the reality, which gets to show your fears as unfounded.

Edited September 10, 2012 by eFestivals

[worm]

If you change any law there's an impact on a nation's society and laws.

[worm]

There's more than one way to write and implement any law.

[eFestivals]

And I'm asking you what you'd do about the well-known and in many cases blatently obvious issues that would arise from it. I've given you numerous examples. You haven't addressed a single iota.

I've addressed it continually.

It's "could", not "would".

And that "could" is dependent on how exactly any new law is written and implemented. So the law won't be written or implemented any way that you're currently thinking.

The issue now becomes one of whether you are able to throw off your prejudices and *think*, rather5 than doing the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and saying "I'm not listening".

How was Tony's case conducted? Did it raise any of the worries you keep repeating? No. So the proof is there that your worries are not the reality.

Here's one: The hypocratic oath would be compromised. As it stands, experts are driven towards prolonging life in every diagnosed treatment.

Here's yet another case where your prejudices have got the better of you. Try referencing the facts in reality, and not what end up being empty words written down on paper.

That's just one example. And it's one that every nation has looked at. Why won't you indulge any of this?

Because it's not a real example, it's a fantasy.

Try referencing the facts and not your fantasies.