Posted on 07/25/2010 1:03:36 PM PDT by wagglebee
I have been repeatedly asked my views about the Final Exit Network advocacy billboards that push assisted suicide. I was going to post on it, but I was interviewed by Fox News Network on the issue, and I think my comments to Fox’s reporter will suffice. From the story:
A national right-to-die organization has launched a controversial billboard campaign to inform terminally ill and elderly adults that they have a right to end their own lives — but critics say the group is simply preying on vulnerable senior citizens and mentally unstable people.
Well, FEN has never advocated restricting assisted suicide to the terminally ill. Moreover, they have assisted suicides of people who were not dying–a point I made abundantly clear:
But others say Final Exit’s mission is unethical … and illegal. “The signs communicate a pro-suicide message that sends a dangerous message throughout society, including to people like the young who would not legally qualify for a lethal prescription,” said Wesley J. Smith, a California-based bioethicist who opposes assisted suicide. “I think they are trying to make themselves seem like an advocacy group rather than one in which some of its members engage in criminal suicide facilitation,” he said.
The story details allegations and pleas of FEN activists assisting suicides of people who clearly were not dying–which I covered here when it happened:
But Final Exit members, including Egbert, also are alleged to have been involved in the 2007 death of an Arizona woman, Jana Van Voorhis, who suffered from a serious mental illness, not a debilitating physical illness. Wye Hale-Rowe, then 79, and retired college professor Frank Langsner, who provided her guidance, as well as two other senior Final Exit officials — Egbert and Roberta Massey — were charged in the case that will go to trial next month. Hale-Rowe pleaded guilty in January to facilitation to commit manslaughter, a felony. She struck a plea deal with county prosecutors and agreed to testify against the three remaining defendants in the case…
Smith says the Voorhis case “shattered” the “pretense that the minions who participate in the Final Exit Network are mere counselors — rather than mobile assisted suicide clinics.”…Smith questions Final Exit’s judgment of “suffering” individuals and asks people to “take the time to look beneath the political posturing and the true agenda — death on demand for people with more than a transitory desire to die — comes clearly into focus.” “I think it is worth pointing out that the logic of these ideologues is impeccable. Once you accept the belief that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering, assisting the suicides of the mentally ill — whose suffering is often far worse than those with physical illnesses — can become compelling,” he said.
Proof of my points are found in the last paragraph from an “alternative” suicide counselor–who is clearly pro suicide–wants people to be able to choose not to burden others by being made dead:
But Carolanne Cortese Barton of Alternate Group Counseling in Bayonne, N.J., says she sees the logic behind the billboard campaign, “because in life everyone has a choice, this really is all we have.” “Family traditions have changed and children are no longer able to take their elderly parents into their homes for care anymore and therefore have to send them to nursing homes,” Barton said. She said the billboards create awareness that there are options out there for people who are suffering and do not want their families to suffer further by paying for treatment and care.
Wow. Honesty. How unusual in the drive to legalize assisted suicide. Whether she is right is the debate we should be having.
Final Exit Network and their ilk simply love death.
Pro-Life Ping
Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.
FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
Here's a photo of the billboard. So much love of death indeed ...
Sorry, repeat picture. We were working on the same thing ...
That being said, the encouragement of another to commit suicide is close to murder. We most often have the ability to end our lives but that is strictly up to the individual. Living wills should be honored. We don't yet have a "duty" to die.
Here are some more ways your ilk are keeping the elderly from exercising their rights...
Will disarming elderly be next 'gun control' push?
Delaware State Police: Woman too old to buy gun
Too bad you lost this one...
Judge returns Pompano Beach retiree's guns seized by Broward Sheriff's Office
Rights...death...same thing?
Only to a ghoul.
You focus on death—I’ll take rights, thanks.
The government DOES NOT grant rights, it only defends them. Rights come from God and there is NOTHING to indicate that euthanasia or assisted suicide is a right.
Here are some more ways your ilk are keeping the elderly from exercising their rights...
Do you have a SHRED of data to support your absurd claim that the pro-life movement wants to restrict 2nd Amendment rights?
Nobody is keeping anyone from killing themselves. They are capable of doing it themselves.
What we are not interested in seeing is a Mengelian culture of death that first encourages death of the old and infirm, and moves on to dictate it.
There’s a world of difference between not prosecuting someone who tried to kill themselves (can’t prosecute someone who succeeded) and promoting it as a *right* supported by the government.
That kind of culture of death devaluation of human life has consequences far more severe than the pro-death crowd acknowledges. It tears at the very fabric of our society and if we go this route, can no longer make any claim of being a civilized society.
Murder is wrong no matter who does the killing and whose life is taken.
So the only purpose behind "right to die" laws is to provide a legal fig leaf for a "duty to die" future for those "useless eaters" that can no longer serve the State.
So, you are against the right to life?
Or do you just believe that every other freedom we have does not have a corresponding right to refuse to partake in it?
Do you have a SHRED of data to support your absurd claim that the pro-life movement wants to restrict 2nd Amendment rights?
Movements don't restrict rights; people do...such as those who took Mr. Weinstein's. For every right, there's the freedom to exercise a corresponding right...
And no matter much you leftist nanny-staters want to make The State and its muscle above the individual, the fact is that ever since the birth of Jesus, God never commanded his followers to forcibly impose their will on others. On the contrary, He commanded them to move on (shake off that dust, now).
You won't be able to convince me that any human living today has moral authority to overrule God, Jesus, the Constitution, or any individual by defining his rights as excluding that which is self-evident: the right to live and the right to die.
You might want to talk with your colleagues; I bet wagglebee does not believe that disabled people should receive assistance to do tasks they are incapable of.
I also think it's disgusting that such people are encouraging people to take their own lives early, so they can do it while they are still capable. Yes, the secret's out...too many people have discovered that they are unable to end things when they finally get to that point--they have waited beyond their physical capacity--and now people are ending it when they still have life left, just so they won't get stuck.
What we are not interested in seeing is a Mengelian culture of death that first encourages death of the old and infirm, and moves on to dictate it.
We are in agreement. There's a world of difference between protecting the right to die and pushing someone toward a path.
There’s a world of difference between not prosecuting someone who tried to kill themselves (can’t prosecute someone who succeeded) and promoting it as a *right* supported by the government.
Rights don't need "support from the government"...they need a lack of interference from it.
That kind of culture of death devaluation of human life has consequences far more severe than the pro-death crowd acknowledges. It tears at the very fabric of our society and if we go this route, can no longer make any claim of being a civilized society.
I think the Pro-Death crowd doesn't care, and that's one reason why I am opposed to them and fight so hard for maintaining the pro-rights view.
But I think that the anti-rights crowd of which you seem to be proud is doing a great job in devaluing the human life by marginalizing it so. If you can take away rights so lightly, why should anyone care about them? If you don't care about people and think you are so superior to them in running their own lives, who's to say another person isn't even better than you?
Only when we respect the individual enough to recognize his own right of self-determination can we be truly respectful of the individual. And a disabled--or able-bodied--person is entitled to receive assistance at tasks. I suppose you would be one to tell George Lane to just "get up and walk" like the courthouse was the temple gate (see Acts 3).
Or do you just believe that every other freedom we have does not have a corresponding right to refuse to partake in it?
Nice twisting of words.
Leaving aside the question of whether the right to life also grants one the right to die, my statement was that euthanasia and assisted suicide ARE NOT RIGHTS. Both of these REQUIRE the participation of others, that is something that you and your ilk always ignore.
Movements don't restrict rights; people do...such as those who took Mr. Weinstein's. For every right, there's the freedom to exercise a corresponding right...
Now, I asked you if you had a shred of evidence that the right to life movement was trying to restrict Second Amendment rights and this is what you post?
Has the culture of death published a new set of talking points claiming that the pro-life movement wants to ban firearms?
In every case, we have free will. If there is no Right to Die, then there is no Right to Life...there is only Obligation.
Death is a PART of life but we did not create life, so we do not have the right to destroy it.
Rights are moral claims, to believe we have a right to death would presume that we also have the right to deny death and this is not the case.
And no matter much you leftist nanny-staters want to make The State and its muscle above the individual, the fact is that ever since the birth of Jesus, God never commanded his followers to forcibly impose their will on others. On the contrary, He commanded them to move on (shake off that dust, now).
People have the ABILITY to end their own lives, that DOES NOT make it a right no matter how much you try.
Implicit in the theory that there is a right to die is the belief that some life is not worth living.
You won't be able to convince me that any human living today has moral authority to overrule God, Jesus, the Constitution, or any individual by defining his rights as excluding that which is self-evident: the right to live and the right to die.
Except the right to life exists and we have a moral claim to it, the right to die cannot exist because death has a claim on us.
Excellent post.
Are you saying that God supports suicide?
So what you are saying is we need to give every disabled person a bottle of poison pills or else we are denying them their right of assistance?
As best I can tell, Gondring considers suicide a GOD-GIVEN RIGHT and believes that it is on an equal footing with life.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
