Saturday, October 03, 2015

On assisted suicide:

How far off are we from people being guilted into committing suicide because they need minor care throughout life?  People are ALREADY routinely guilted into not reproducing because of genetic defects in their family, which are not fatal just inconvenient.  (And we ALL have genetic defects.  They’re often paired with the genes for intelligence and other “good” traits.)  How far off are we from “oh, you have asthma?  Society would save a lot of money if you died.”

I don’t judge the people in great suffering who choose to end it.  But I judge people who make decisions on the value of human life based on the assumption that humans are just “a drain on society.”

I connect this with the attitude "If you do 'X', and you get hurt, it costs ALL of us!  So we have a say in what you're allowed to do!"  The big one there is smoking, but the attitude carries over to damn-near anything: driving, motorcycles, scuba, hang-gliding, the list goes on and on.


Smart Diplomacy.  From that backstabbing treasonous cretin in the White House.


When I hear a Pajama Boy say that strong disagreement, even angry speech, is “violence,” I just want one of those cartoon boxing gloves on a spring to come out of nowhere and punch him in the head: “See? Now, granted, that WAS violence. Before we were just talking. Feel the difference?” OK, I lied. I want to do it myself. I know it’s wrong; it’s not enlightened, it’s not kind; it’s not feminine; and it’s definitely not Jewish. I recently fasted for 25 hours to atone for thoughts like this. But that’s how strongly I feel about equating mere speech with assault.


And, for my confidence-inspiring news of the moment,
Over the last 10 days, Obama’s top advisers on cyber-security, ISIS, and Russia have all resigned.




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Assisted suicide is a tough one. It's pretty miserable taking care of a terminal cancer patient suffer through their last few days - seeing them in agony, and being unable to effectively treat it. At a certain point, the amount of morphine needed to control their pain is great enough that it causes respiratory depression, and the patient is unconscious - but likely still in pain. Or a severe stroke patient, who can no longer walk, or talk, or move, but may still be inside that body, suffering. I'd be more than happy to accept euthanasia if I were in that situation.

Many of us in health care feel that way, and not because a patient is a burden, or expensive - but because they are suffering. There are worse things than death.

Firehand said...

Pretty much.

It's scary as hell just how slippery the 'assisted' slope is when it becomes official. Read something a while back from(I think) the Netherlands, people being assisted in suicide by a doctor basically because 'I'm not happy.'