Posted on 09/27/2009 10:19:41 AM PDT by wagglebee
New guidance has been issued to clarify the law on assisted suicide in England and Wales - but it offers no guarantees against prosecution.
Instead the Director of Public Prosecutions has spelled out the range of factors that will be taken into account when deciding on cases.
The move has been welcomed by 33 year old Kelly Taylor from Bristol who is terminally ill.
In 2005 she tried to starve herself in the hope she would end her pain.
"I think the new guidelines are a breakthrough, as it gives people the knowledge when and where they're going wrong and when they could be prosecuted. It also gives people like me greater patient choice."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
"I still want to die. I don't believe in prolonging a life that isn't worth living."
The Nazis introduced the idea that there were lives "not worth living" and the "worth" was totally based on financial costs. It is sad that this young woman has been manipulated by the culture of death into believing that her life is worthless.
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Yeah, it's not like a person could make a decision on her own! Other people know SO much more than she does about her pain and whether she wants to live! </sarc>
By the way, she didn't say her life was "worthless"...I think that it's sick that you make that claim.
Let’s get this information out; some might want to contact their email lists with this piece.
Actually, she DID:
"I still want to die. I don't believe in prolonging a life that isn't worth living."
Glad to see that you're still pushing the culture of death's agenda. The way things are going, you could be one of Zero's czars.
As for the subject of the article, it recalls Chesterton in Heretics.
"At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man say, "Life is not worth living." We regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day; nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man or on the world. And yet if that utterance were really believed, the world would stand on its head. Murderers would be given medals for saving men from life; firemen would be denounced for keeping men from death; poisons would be used as medicines; doctors would be called in when people were well; the Royal Humane Society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins. Yet we never speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist will strengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced that theories do not matter. "
Chesterton was clever...clever enough that I think that he intentionally twisted and conflated the individual with the generic.
You posted "isn't worth living" and then equated that with "worthless." No wonder you are so mixed up.
Suppose, for instance, you wake up early Saturday morning and think of how tasty the pastries from the local bakery are...but decide that (a) you don't want to get out of bed, and (b) you don't want to ruin your diet.
Did you just call the pastries "worthless," or did you just decide that they weren't worth it?
If you can't see the difference, it only reinforces the reason that you shouldn't be making the decisions for other people how to run their lives.
Glad to see that you're still pushing the culture of death's agenda.
Actually, I'm not at all doing so.
I'm pushing a culture of respect for individuals and their freedom to make choices about their own lives.
It's really quite American. And what is so wrong with that? What do you have against people making their own choices about their own lives? The way things are going, you could be one of Zero's czars.
Nope. Your anti-freedom, anti-individual view is much more in line with his idea that government knows better than individual citizens what decisions to make about their lives.
Actually, she DID:
You posted "isn't worth living" and then equated that with "worthless." No wonder you are so mixed up.
Suppose, for instance, you wake up early Saturday morning and think of how tasty the pastries from the local bakery are...but decide that (a) you don't want to get out of bed, and (b) you don't want to ruin your diet.
Did you just call the pastries "worthless," or did you just decide that they weren't worth it?
If you can't see the difference, it only reinforces the reason that you shouldn't be making the decisions for other people how to run their lives.
Glad to see that you're still pushing the culture of death's agenda.
Actually, I'm not at all doing so.
I'm pushing a culture of respect for individuals and their freedom to make choices about their own lives.
It's really quite American. And what is so wrong with that? What do you have against people making their own choices about their own lives?
The way things are going, you could be one of Zero's czars.
Nope. Your anti-freedom, anti-individual view is much more in line with his idea that government knows better than individual citizens what decisions to make about their lives.
YOU want to kill people and you think I am "mixed up"?
I'm pushing a culture of respect for individuals and their freedom to make choices about their own lives.
Right and the abortionists are pushing a "culture of respect."
You've been pushing euthanasia/assisted suicide for years and everyone knows it.
Nope. Your anti-freedom, anti-individual view is much more in line with his idea that government knows better than individual citizens what decisions to make about their lives.
Nope. Your anti-freedom, anti-individual view is much more in line with his idea that government knows better than individual citizens what decisions to make about their lives.
Hey troll, euthanasia is by definition anti-freedom and anti-individual.
The VA death manuals sound identical to what you've been saying for years.
While promoting euthanasia (which is by definition the culture of death’s agenda), you deny pushing the culture of death’s agenda. You place artificial qualifications (such as brain function) on the “right” to life, which you fail to meet. Do you not see the irony?
Please show the fine people where I ever indicated I want to kill people. Or keep your libelous fantasies to yourself.
Right and the abortionists are pushing a "culture of respect."
I must disagree with you on that.
You've been pushing euthanasia/assisted suicide for years and everyone knows it.
Uh, no. I've been pushing the right to voluntary (i.e., requested) euthanasia/assisted suicide. You evidently can't comprehend the idea of people making their own decisions...why is it so important to you that people be controlled by others? I push for the right of people to make up their own minds, not have someone else force it on them. Why does that scare you so?
Hey troll, euthanasia is by definition anti-freedom and anti-individual.
First of all, my behavior is decidedly not trollish.
Secondly, if you want to define ("by definition") euthanasia that way, then please explain your definition of euthanasia. Do you not distinguish between involuntary euthanasia (something I oppose, obviously, as it is directly counter to respecting an individual's wishes) and voluntary? If not, then please give the other terms you want to redefine to make that distinction.
It's pointless to change definitions and pretend that's discussion.
I equate pushing the culture of death's euthanasia/assisted suicide agenda with wanting to kill people. Obviously, I don't respect how the culture of death likes to redefine words to fit their agenda, you know, words like "voluntary" and "choice" and "worth living".
Uh, no. I've been pushing the right to voluntary (i.e., requested) euthanasia/assisted suicide. You evidently can't comprehend the idea of people making their own decisions...why is it so important to you that people be controlled by others? I push for the right of people to make up their own minds, not have someone else force it on them. Why does that scare you so?
Right, it always starts out as "voluntary", then it's no longer voluntary.
First of all, my behavior is decidedly not trollish.
Have you noticed that you aren't getting the kind of support around here you used to? Zero has opened a lot of people's eyes.
Gondring, you may not realize it, but you aren’t any different from all theose folks who say, “So what if Canada has a problem with their health care, we’re a different country” or “All those tales about bad medicine in other countries with universal health care are just lies and horror stories.”
When we open the door to “assisted suicide,” it gets abused. See Oregon and the Netherlands for examples.
Have you ever noticed the biggest euthanasia advocates
never sign up to be first in line to avail themselves of
all the starvation and dehydration laws they’ve put in place?
Hey Dick Lamm and George Soros - it’s for you!
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Well, I've never pushed those agenda. The culture of death is not interested in people having the right to choose life or death. It's more like you, wanting to force a decision on a person.
So the fact is, I have never indicated I want to kill people, and you made it up.
Obviously, I don't respect how the culture of death likes to redefine words to fit their agenda, you know, words like "voluntary" and "choice" and "worth living".
Agreed. I am also against the culture of death. I'm in favor of a Culture of RespectTM...respect for individual people and their decisions, and that's what separates us.
Right, it always starts out as "voluntary", then it's no longer voluntary.
That happens only when people like Obama and you get their way, making things involuntary. If we can achieve a culture of respect for the individual choices, then we obviously don't get the involuntary.
But evidently you want it to become involuntary, or else you are a fatalist and believe that there's no way we can avoid tyrrany.
If the culture that I support wins out, then there will not be "involuntary" and people's rights will be respected. Why are you so against that?
Besides, your claim is specious.
Have you noticed that you aren't getting the kind of support around here you used to?
Yeah, funny how threats of getting banned force people to message support in private, isn't it?
And it's also funny how those who try to win arguments by silencing opponents via threats are the ones who look like fools (actually, the descriptions I've heard have been a lot more colorful :-).
You have a serious problem with projection, but that's typical of the left.
So the fact is, I have never indicated I want to kill people, and you made it up.
No, you simply support laws that get people killed.
I'm in favor of a Culture of RespectTM...respect for individual people and their decisions, and that's what separates us.
Got it, you're "personally opposed" to killing people, but don't want to impose your values on others.
If the culture that I support wins out, then there will not be "involuntary" and people's rights will be respected. Why are you so against that?
Because even in your utopian fantasy world, euthanasia is still wrong.
Why do you keep pretending that you never supported involuntary euthanasia? You rabidly supported the forced starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo. When we first learned about Mae Maguirk, you immediately jumped in to support her pending forced starvation and dehydration.
Just a little background for any noobs. Carry on.
I think we are supposed to feel sorry for the deathbots because they now have to support each other via FReepmail. They long to go back to the WPPFF days when they could openly support murder.
I do pity them.
It’s hard not to pity the pathetic.
Nothing is more pathetic than choosing evil over good.
Is gondring on the ping list, or does he just barge in? I cannot understand what he is trying to accomplish by arguing against the Absolutes on the "Moral Absolutes" threads, rather than working out with the rest of us how these Absolutes can be restored to law or safeguarded in the lives of innocents.
The absolutes to which we refer on these threads may be Christian ones; but our understanding is that Christ came to give us the rules for living and make us ambassadors of those principles for the good of the entire world. This understanding undergirds the now-embattled doctrine of American exceptionalism, in which so many of our best and brightest have given their lives to free other nations, without trying to annex those nations permanently.
Christ warned that many would mock and fight against the principles He taught, even though they represent harmony with the imperatives of the Supreme Government of the universe; and even though going astray from them puts the transgressor into jeopardy. Those principles transcend any earthly government; and we understand all of us who believe in them may have to die for them physically, not just those who engage in combat service. Certainly we must "die to self."
It's not hard to see why some people feel that Christianity is a form of aggressive imperialism; and also why some people are tempted to the sin of self-righteousness through the use of government power.
When our pioneer nation was formed, most of its population was at least socially Christian and I believe a majority actually believed in its tenets; now, we can expect the mocking and argumentation to intensify. In modern times, now that we have prolonged our lives, improved health and sanitation and many of the other temporal ills that tested the faith of former generations, we are spoiled children afflicted with gluttony, lust and boredom. If God did not now use intellectual challenges to test our resolve to stand for what we believe is His will, what would be the point of claiming to follow Him?
NONE of the Founding Fathers supporting anything even approaching euthanasia and the idea that they were just a bunch of libertarians is absurd (some of them supported the death penalty for homosexuals).
You don’t need to convince me.
I wasn't aware that it was a private thread. Perhaps you should just use FReepmail.
In most cases, when something is posted, other FReepers join in and post on the thread...and I know you know that.
The absolutes to which we refer on these threads may be Christian ones; but our understanding is that Christ came to give us the rules for living and make us ambassadors of those principles for the good of the entire world.
Yes, but you must have a different Bible from the one on which I was raised. In mine, Jesus didn't say, "try to get the Romans to pass laws controlling the behavior of the people." In mine, what Jesus actually taught was that if people didn't agree with what you were pushing, you just shake the dust off your sandals and move on.
I suppose you feel that you have a better absolute than what He taught.
Perhaps your buddies here are using the following, from the Book of Disrespect, though I don't recall the chapter and verse:
1Use the 'net and cast broadly, and take the red herringsa to the Forum and spread them so that all may experience their stench.Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what they follow, but I must break it to you...that's not from the Bible.
asome manuscripts include: (such as "culture of death," "pro-death," or "euthanasia," for "respecting an individual and his rights").
I'm sure that the Founding Fathers believed that enemies could be killed but that a person had no right to request it himself.
Oh, yes...I'm sure that Gen. Washington was totally unaware of every coup de grâce that his soldiers adminstered. Good thing he never read their journals! </sarc>
Then why fight against making the culture one of respecting patient wishes as supreme?
The Obama-Wagglebee method of making decisions for other people is what leads to things being involuntary. Certainly, if people followed my approach, and the culture respected individual choices, the slippery slope would lead nowhere.
Perhaps that’s why countries with laws respecting the right to die kill off fewer people illegally and involuntarily than those without.
I went on to wonder why you would want to try to play moral one-upmanship on the topic, Moral Absolutes. Persons on MA threads are grappling with the many aspects, both personal and political, of how to maintain a culture of life within an increasingly libertine (not libertarian) society -- a debauched society that has been made so by the deliberate incursion from atheists, Fabians, Marxists, socialists and communists and amply advertised as such in their literature for the past 100 years. If you are still a victim of their brainwashing, wake up!
Next, you try to rationalize that Jesus telling the apostles to shake the dust off their feet if their gospel is not honored should be the moral example to citizens in a representative democracy witnessing the slaughter of innocents and the accompanying social anarchy that is destroying the physical and mental health of our nation's youth. Again, not buying it.
I think I speak for many when I quote not just Matthew 22:21, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's", but also the U.S. Constitution, which says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
And lastly, when others don't agree with your point of view in a completely open, unbranded discussion, you can launch any unfounded ad hominen opinion you wish, such as "book of disrespect", "red herring" and "stench." But when you enter a thread that is open, but clearly labeled "Moral Absolutes" that is pinged to a majority of FReepers who have joined it expressly because they have very clear, very traditionally conservative points of view as to what a moral absolute consists of, you then go negative. To what purpose? You will have to improve both your reading comprehension and your debate skills before convincing any of us that your ostensibly libertarian, anarchic point of view is good for society.
Leftists seem to have a predisposition for projection and you certainly fit the bill.
Zero SUPPORTS euthanasia, as do you.
I OPPOSE euthanasia.
The difference couldn't be more obvious.
The Obama-Wagglebee method of making decisions for other people is what leads to things being involuntary.So what makes you think the very respected and esteemed Wagglebee has anything in common with the First Felon? Opposing murder, suicide and other forms of taking of innocent life is called civilized behavior. What would you have, a suicide switch available on demand?
Thanks Narses.
***Uh, no. I’ve been pushing the right to voluntary (i.e., requested) euthanasia/assisted suicide.***
Euthanasia/assisted suicide is still the deliberate killing of other human beings. Civilized humans do not participate in such activities. We are also constrained to consider human life as sacred; if one person’s life can be considered to be worthless, then any person’s life can be considered to be worthless.
Let’s examine that idea. If I as an individual human being consider you as another human being to be worthy or deserving of the deprivation of life (regardless of whether you ask for it or not), then I can be dealt with properly under the law. The government, on the other hand, is the only legal wielder of institutional force in the land and if they consider you as being worthy or deserving of being deprived of life, then what? People become merely things to be manipulated, controlled, destroyed at whim.
The line between voluntary asking for euthanasia and an unconscious patient unable to ask is so thin that with the pressure of ungrateful heirs impatient for their inheritance, it becomes invisible. And when that precedence is set, then anyone deemed worthy of death can be killed, and the justification will simply be created.
No newbie, some FReepers just realize that there are other FReepers who are interested in certain topics. This IS a PRO-LIFE forum, that issue IS NOT up for debate.
If you don't agree with them, well, your just going to hell and they are psychic about you based on a few comments made.
No, there are some pro-death trolls on here with long standing records.
Their threads are usually good for a insight into the fringe of pseudo Christians.
So, you consider OPPOSING euthanasia to be a "pseud-Christian" position? If that is the case you have a serious misunderstanding of what Christianity is.
This was posted in the news forum. If you want mod protection, post your threads in the RF.
Please quit hitting the abuse button, take it like a man and fight your own battles. We are not here to do it for you.
I wan’t aware that hitting the abuse button versus engaging in flame wars was a bad thing here. Suggesting another freeper has a “Serious mental deficit there” is clearly abusive and against the site TOS - to wit:
Please: NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts.
Since I was the poster attacked, I hit the abuse button rather than respond in kind. Now you tell me I should not have done that. Are personal attacks now allowed?
Get over it.
***Some freepers cannot hold a discussion without calling in their posse to help defend them...
No newbie, some FReepers just realize that there are other FReepers who are interested in certain topics. This IS a PRO-LIFE forum, that issue IS NOT up for debate.***
Either human life is sacred or else it isn’t. It is no mistake that those who oppose abortion AND capital punishment AND euthanasia are consistent and following the commands of Christ at least in that way. Those who only support one or two out of the three are hypocrites and when they post that hypocrisy on a public forum, they can and should be called out.
*** If you don’t agree with them, well, your just going to hell and they are psychic about you based on a few comments made.
No, there are some pro-death trolls on here with long standing records.***
Advocating killing people is a significant comment. If you are going to commit suicide, then do so without fuss or publicity or any of the narcissistic crap that so often accompanies the (usually) non feat. Attempted starvation in 2005? Bushwa. If this idiot wanted commit suicide, that would have been accomplished.
Starving a helpless human being to death and calling it merciful is worse than immoral. It is criminal both in the eyes of men and of God. Jesus taught us to have mercy on our fellow man and to help the helpless, not to kill them like unwanted kittens.
***Their threads are usually good for a insight into the fringe of pseudo Christians.
So, you consider OPPOSING euthanasia to be a “pseud-Christian” position? If that is the case you have a serious misunderstanding of what Christianity is.***
Let us see you put your “orthodox Christian beliefs (whatever they are)” into practice.
I didn’t hit abuse on post 38 (though I did on another post).
Why would I post this to the religion forum, it’s not a religious thread.
Jim has always said that FR is pro-life, if I have been to vigilant in my support of the pro-life movement I apologize for the misunderstanding.
Sure, get over reporting abusive personal attacks? Get over reporting trolls? Get over defending the prolife nature of this site? Tell me where personal attacks are allowed and when, I might want to get into that game.
I don’t seem much point in barging in about most of this. There seem to be two things at stake. One is an argument over phrasing. It seems to me that in the end that is pretty pointless. The other is an argument over euthanasia. On that, it seems to me that the traditional view should hold—that all men have an “inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
If someone really wants to commit suicide, I think it’s wrong, but there’s really no way that I can stop them. But I oppose the idea that they have a right to be helped to commit suicide by their doctors. Especially by a government-run national healthcare system.
Because, once you encourage that, then you really do get into the slippery slope, as we have seen in the Netherlands—where people have been killed for convenience against their wills—and are are beginning to see in England.
Once healthcare workers and doctors get used to killing their patients instead of trying to save them, you are going to start running into plenty of problems—such as killing people because the government is running a deficit and wants to save money.
Please see FReepmail.
He asked a question. “Get over it” is not a reply.
Basic human dignity entitles a person to more courtesy than that.
How about this?
Argue about the topic on the thread and leave the mods out of it. We will not referee petty disagreements and personal vendattas.
You people need to grow up as FR is a site for grownups.
This is the statement of one who does not know God. Those who know God also know that every life is worth living be it for a few hours or many decades.
At his blog Journeys in Alterity, Kyle Cupp has posted this Eulogy to Vivian Marie Cupp. It’s a tribute to his infant daughter who died Sept. 24 only 15 hours after she was born, due to the congenital disorder of anencephaly that was diagnosed while she was in the womb.The grieving father’s eulogy is a true love story, one that communicates how precious is the gift of every human life and every moment of each life no matter how short or long. And it’s a pro-life love story that serves as a testament on behalf of Kyle and his wife Genece’s decision to welcome Vivian into this world with all the love in their hearts, despite knowing that their daughter was fated to die so soon after her birth. Read More
Each life is an expression of God's love, even if we don't respond. The biggest problem we face today is a return to pagan society. This is the fruit.
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