Supreme Court upholds assisted suicide law.

[cgannon64]

The government imposes beliefs on people all the time. That's what governments do.

 

[Kayak]

The government imposes beliefs on people all the time. That's what governments do.

cg, you know better than that. It has to have a reason to do so first. A reason that would protect or benefit some portion of it's citizens first.

 

[cgannon64]

Keeping citizens from suicide sounds like a damn good reason to me.

 

[Kayak]

Keeping citizens from suicide sounds like a damn good reason to me.

Is assisting a terminaly ill person to die on their own terms helping a suicide? I think that is a big streach.

 

[El_Machinae]

Wow ... you really think that assisted suicide is wrong?

People don't have the right to commit suicide? Even if they've consulted professionals and do not believe that their life is worth living, and the professional admits that nothing could be done to allay their beliefs?

Wow. Just ... wow ...

I thought self-sacrifice was a virtue? Don't people have the right to sacrifice themselves for the good of others? How can they not have the right to sacrifice themselves for the good of ... themselves?

 

[bhsup]

First, I want to correct those who compare this to abortion in that they think they are both religious issues. Assisted suicide is certainly a religious issue, but abortion is no more one that pulling out a gun and shooting a baby in a crib is one. Now that that's out of the way...

Yes, my opposition to assisted suicide is certainly based on my faith. I make no apologies for that and have no qualms in pushing for laws that are religiously based. If enough people support that, fine and dandy.

Don't like it? Move to another State. That's the beauty of the US, at least it should be, if the feds would stay out of things they have no business being involved in. Each State can be drastically different from one another as long as basic Constitutional requirements are met.

 

[cgannon64]

Is assisting a terminaly ill person to die on their own terms helping a suicide? I think that is a big streach.

Unless you have a nonstandard definition of the word "suicide," yes, it is.

People don't have the right to commit suicide? Even if they've consulted professionals and do not believe that their life is worth living, and the professional admits that nothing could be done to allay their beliefs?

What if a 22-year old is convinced that his life is not worth living, that it will be nothing but (spiritual/emotional) suffering from then on out? Does he have the right to a physician-assisted suicide?

How can they not have the right to sacrifice themselves for the good of ... themselves?

Because that doesn't make any sense.

EDIT: Also, there are theological arguments against suicide, but those obviously don't belong in public debate.

 

[El_Machinae]

What if a 22-year old is convinced that his life is not worth living, that it will be nothing but (spiritual/emotional) suffering from then on out? Does he have the right to a physician-assisted suicide?

The physician has a series of requirements, including determining whether the subject's life can be made worth living. If the physician cannot diagnose a reparable illness, then who's to say the kid is wrong.

I'd rather a kid be allowed to fill out some paper work and die in a civilized manner than have his parents find him in the garage with a running car.

 

[cgannon64]

The physician has a series of requirements, including determining whether the subject's life can be made worth living.

What was the world come to, where that is determined by doctors?

I'd rather a kid be allowed to fill out some paper work and die in a civilized manner than have his parents find him in the garage with a running car.

I'd rather have the kid not die. And legalizing suicide doesn't exactly teach kids that suicide is bad.

And, anyway, what is the real difference between "civilized" suicide and "uncivilized" suicide? One is aesthetically pleasing, and the other is shocking? One is neat and orderly, and the other is messy? Are we trying to prevent despair, or we trying to hide it?

 

[El_Machinae]

What was the world come to, where that is determined by doctors?

Who else can decide? The person has decided that their life is not worth living. And a doctor cannot prove otherwise. A doctor, like a priest or lawyer, can give full confidentiality. As well, a doctor can determine if the depression can be corrected.

Who else? You? The kid decides. The doctor is a special check.

Look, we live in a universe that attempts to kill us all the time. It's noble to prevent death, but it's not noble to prevent death in those who want it.

Have you no respect for free will, and others people's ability to choose?

 

[cgannon64]

Who else can decide? The person has decided that their life is not worth living. And a doctor cannot prove otherwise. A doctor, like a priest or lawyer, can give full confidentiality. As well, a doctor can determine if the depression can be corrected.

Who else? You? The kid decides. The doctor is a special check.

No, as you described, the doctor decides whether the life "can be made worth living." That implies that the doctor has a minimum standard of living that is "worth living," and anything below that is worse than death. That is absurd.

Look, we live in a universe that attempts to kill us all the time. It's noble to prevent death, but it's not noble to prevent death in those who want it.

Sure it is. Would you try to talk a friend out of suicide?

Have you no respect for free will, and others people's ability to choose?

I have no respect for free will when it is in error, especially when it is in grave error.

 

[IglooDame]

CG, let's be fair here - the only reason people would need assistance (M.D. or otherwise) with suicide is if they're not physically capable of pulling a trigger or swallowing something poisonous. So, this law really only affects those for whom life is what any reasonable person would consider to be approaching unendurable and would thus have understandable reasons for wanting to end it. The angst-ridden teen isn't going to be going to a doctor asking for a suicide prescription and isn't likely to consider suicide more of an option because of a SCOTUS decision or any law.

 

[eyrei]

Its odd that we will execute terminally ill inmates but for the most part won't allow normal citizens to die when they wish.

 

[cgannon64]

So, this law really only affects those for whom life is what any reasonable person would consider to be approaching unendurable and would thus have understandable reasons for wanting to end it.

Isn't it obvious that, in my opinion, no conditions are rationally worse than death?

The angst-ridden teen isn't going to be going to a doctor asking for a suicide prescription and isn't likely to consider suicide more of an option because of a SCOTUS decision or any law.

Whether this would increase suicides can't really be determined - but what is unquestionable is that this does legitimize suicide. It says that physical pain can be worse than death. Why not emotional reasons?

 

[IglooDame]

Isn't it obvious that, in my opinion, no conditions are rationally worse than death?

Yep, and you're entitled to your opinion. Given that as yet no one (including SCOTUS) has determined exactly how bad death is, all anyone has is their own opinion. And, it therefore follows that I should legally be able to follow my opinion of how bad death is, and you should be able to follow yours.

Whether this would increase suicides can't really be determined - but what is unquestionable is that this does legitimize suicide.

In the same way that smoking cigarettes is legitimate, but smoking marijuana is not? Anyone taking their moral/ethical code from federal, state, and local law needs some serious guidance anyway.

 

[cgannon64]

Yep, and you're entitled to your opinion. Given that as yet no one (including SCOTUS) has determined exactly how bad death is, all anyone has is their own opinion. And, it therefore follows that I should legally be able to follow my opinion of how bad death is, and you should be able to follow yours.

I don't beleive in this "tolerance" stuff when we're talking about people dying. Some things are intolerable - you cannot deny that. We've chosen to set a different standard for what is intolerable, but that doesn't make mine any less legitimate than yours.

In the same way that smoking cigarettes is legitimate, but smoking marijuana is not? Anyone taking their moral/ethical code from federal, state, and local law needs some serious guidance anyway.

Aww, c'mon. You can't use the previous failure of the state to provide a coherent moral example to prove that the state is not allowed provide a moral example.

 

[IglooDame]

I don't beleive in this "tolerance" stuff when we're talking about people dying. Some things are intolerable - you cannot deny that. We've chosen to set a different standard for what is intolerable, but that doesn't make mine any less legitimate than yours.

The things that are intolerable involve my infringing on your rights or vice versa. How am I harmed by your opinion that death is better than your current life?

Aww, c'mon. You can't use the previous failure of the state to provide a coherent moral example to prove that the state is not allowed provide a moral example.

Okay, can you give me a valid example of the state providing a coherent moral example in the absence of the usual infringing-on-another's-rights basis for the criminal code?

 

[Neomega]

You ever see the video tapes made by some of the people Dr. Kevorkian assisted?

Some of them had diseases that left them in chronic, agonizing pain. Some of them had diseases that meant they were going to waste away to nothing, and were already well in the process.

I for one, would not want to live in chronic pain, nor would I want to be a drooling, useless invalid, pooping my wheelchair, and drooling down the front of my shirt, in front of my wife at age 35, with only medical bills piling up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and eventual death from respiratory failure or suffocating in my own vomit as a future for her to look forward to in the next one or two years that I had left.

All video tapes showed coherent people, understanding clearly what they were asking Dr. Kevorkian for, and why. The end of the road comes for all of us one day, can we at least meet it the way we wish without yet one more moralizing judgement casting human telling us the best way to meet our maker, and how we should continue a miserable life because someone we never met knows better, yet all those who love us are in agreement that I want to die with dignity?

 

[El_Machinae]

Isn't it obvious that, in my opinion, no conditions are rationally worse than death?

Not for someone who, quite rationally, believes in an afterlife. For that person, a person without hope that the pain can end, death would not only be a release, but a new beginning.

Who else is allowed to choose whether someone lives or dies? Nature?

 

[nihilistic]

I have no respect for free will when it is in error, especially when it is in grave error.

Delicious.

So, if I can demonstrate that the way you exercised your "free will" to believe in your religion is completely logically incoherent (i.e. in error), will you no longer have respect for your own free will?

Anyway, I can recall and anticipate many instances in the past and/or in the future where this quote would be fun to pull out.