It's criminal to outlaw this final act of love... (UK Pro-Euthanasia)

UK Daily Mirror ^ | 12/13/08 | Tony Parsons

[wagglebee]

If you have ever watched a loved one die, then you know that in the end most lives are narrowed down to a place of unrelenting suffering.

Terminal illness can be fought for so long, but in the end there is pain, grief, distress - and not much else.

Death can be a relief because it brings a release from all that torment. I would guess that anyone who has ever seen a loved one enduring the final days and weeks of their life will have watched Sky TV's Right To Die? with nothing but sympathy for Craig and Mary Ewert.

Viewers saw Craig, desperately sick with motor neurone disease, sipping a fatal dose of tranquillisers in a Swiss clinic as Mary sat by his side, saying goodbye.

A cynical attempt to boost rating or a searing insight into assisted suicide? The answer is probably both - but the motives for showing the documentary hardly matter. There is only one question that really counts - is it right?

In Britain anyone helping someone to take their life is liable to 14 years in jail, even if all you did was book their flight.

Yet Mary Ewert's involvement in her husband's death looked like an act of compassion, not crime. Here was a woman confronted with an impossible choice.

To help her husband die with dignity and face possible imprisonment, or do nothing and see the unremitting misery of his life inside a body that he called "a living tomb".

All the old vocabulary - assisted suicide, euthanasia - seem inadequate. These are cold, clinical terms for what is one last act of love.

Rugby player Daniel James, 23, was paralysed from the chest down when a scrum collapsed on him.

There was no treatment that could improve his condition and no hope of recovery.

Dan was a young man whose life had been taken away from him. Independent, sporting, active, he was suddenly as dependent upon his parents as a newborn child.

Why should that young man have to endure the unendurable? Who claims the moral authority to say he doesn't have the right to terminate the living hell of his existence?

No doubt Daniel felt like he was a terrible burden on his loving parents, Mark and Julie James. And no doubt every waking moment of his life was a wretched reminder of everything that had been taken away from him.

Daniel's parents have been told that they will not face prosecution for helping their son to die at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.

In a country where real criminals are too often let off with a slap on the wrist and a pat on the head, this feels like justice, as well as common decency.

Under guidelines issued to the courts this week by the Sentencing Guidelines Council, junkies and alcoholics will be spared jail for burglary and theft if they get treatment for their addictions.

Yet the law still dangles long prison sentences over the heads of those who only want their loved ones to die with dignity. And that is obscene. Yes, end-of-life choice is a moral minefield.

Family members worn out by caring for someone might decide to take the easy way out.

Relatives desperate to get their hands on granny's inheritance might be keen to help the old girl on her way.

Depression or mental illness might cause someone to end their life when what they really need is medication or psychiatric help.

And although death can be a release, for the parents of Daniel James and for the wife of Craig Ewert, there was nothing remotely easy about helping their loved one to die. It broke their hearts.

But it was the right thing to do.

And that is why, for all the moral difficulties involved, choosing to end your own life should be legal in this country.

"If I opt for life then that is choosing to be tortured," said Craig Ewert before the end. "I've had a pretty good run." And Craig had a better death than most I have seen.

He died listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, sipping apple juice and with his wife Mary by his side. Telling Craig she loved him. And saying goodbye.

The assisted death of Craig Ewert, 59, was both sad and inspiring. He had a pretty good run and he died with dignity.

It is the most that any of us can ask for.

CHOOSING TO END YOUR LIFE SHOULD BE LEGAL

[wagglebee]

If you have ever watched a loved one die, then you know that in the end most lives are narrowed down to a place of unrelenting suffering.

This WOULD be true if natural death was not what God intended for us -- of course the culture of death conveniently denies the existence of God to advance their agenda.

[wagglebee]

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[WilliamofCarmichael]

It's criminal to outlaw this final act of love

"Hey! That's my line!" Michael Schiavo

[wagglebee]

Funny (in a dark and disturbing way), but true.

[ReneeLynn]

I have watched and cared for a loved one dying.

I don’t understand the mindset behind sitting beside that loved one while he intakes poison. Unless it’s simply to always make life easier for the relative. I think ‘dying with dignity’ is nothing more than something these people tell themselves in order to avoid their duty to care for a loved one unto death. If family can’t do that for you, who will?

It’s the take the easy way out generation. Although I don’t know what’s supposed to be so easy about killing someone you claim to love. I wouldn’t want to live with that, but I can live with having cared for my step father, at home, until he passed away.

[redpoll]

Of course choosing the end of your life is “legal” in that any of us at any moment can choose suicide. Even that poor fella paralyzed in the scrum could stop eating and drinking, and after a while his life would leave him.

Asking me to kill you is another matter completely. Setting up a state apparatus to kill people seems like it has the capacity for making poor choices and flawed judgments.

Aldoux Huxley’s “Brave New World” imposed euthanasia on every older than 60. That kind of thinking is the end point for this discussion.

It’s interesting that those of us who love liberty are faced by two death cults - Islamofascism, with its fascination with the afterlife and paradise, and socialism, with its fascination with the future and utopia.

I think someone said during the French Revolution that “the revolution eats its children.” Government-sponsored euthanasia fits the bill.

[ClearCase_guy]

I think ‘dying with dignity’ is nothing more than something these people tell themselves in order to avoid their duty to care for a loved one unto death."

I've been there too and I agree with what you say.

Also, this is about the best example of a slippery slope one could find.

Dying with dignity? Weeeeelllll, maybe we could legalize that.
Killing people who seem brain-dead, or at least unresponsive? Weeeeellll, Okay, maybe in some cases ...
Killing people with disabilities who drain resources from "other things"? Heck, it's the right thing to do.
Exterminating the "useless eaters"? Darn right! It's your patriotic duty!

[wagglebee]

think ‘dying with dignity’ is nothing more than something these people tell themselves in order to avoid their duty to care for a loved one unto death. If family can’t do that for you, who will?

I agree.

Dignity is a part of a person's character, APPEARING "dignified" WILL NOT give a person dignity and looking undignified will not take away a person's inherent dignity. To accept the culture of death's "death with dignity" logic, one must accept that Hitler "died with dignity" and Jesus Christ did not.

I wouldn’t want to live with that, but I can live with having cared for my step father, at home, until he passed away.

With very few exceptions, we will ALL one day have to care for loved ones as they die and while it will never be easy, we must understand that death is a natural part of life.

[trisham]

Rugby player Daniel James, 23, was paralysed from the chest down when a scrum collapsed on him.

There was no treatment that could improve his condition and no hope of recovery.

Dan was a young man whose life had been taken away from him. Independent, sporting, active, he was suddenly as dependent upon his parents as a newborn child.

Why should that young man have to endure the unendurable? Who claims the moral authority to say he doesn't have the right to terminate the living hell of his existence?

No doubt Daniel felt like he was a terrible burden on his loving parents, Mark and Julie James. And no doubt every waking moment of his life was a wretched reminder of everything that had been taken away from him.

Daniel's parents have been told that they will not face prosecution for helping their son to die at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.

********************

They murdered their own child. I can't believe it.

[wagglebee]

They murdered their own child.

And seem offended that many aren't cheering.

[wagglebee]

Dying with dignity? Weeeeelllll, maybe we could legalize that.
Killing people who seem brain-dead, or at least unresponsive? Weeeeellll, Okay, maybe in some cases ...
Killing people with disabilities who drain resources from "other things"? Heck, it's the right thing to do.
Exterminating the "useless eaters"? Darn right! It's your patriotic duty!

I've actually seen FReepers making these arguments, they then get offended when I post this:

“This person suffering from hereditary defects

costs the people 60,000 Reichmarks during his lifetime.

People, that is your money. Read ‘New People’.”

[TonyStark]

Exterminating the "useless eaters"? Darn right! It's your patriotic duty!

I don't know, I think euthanizing Congressmen will get you in trouble.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Let’s recast this argument. They want to kill people, because they can’t bear the thought of thinking that they are suffering. That is, while they may or may not actually be suffering, the killers, filled with faux empathy, want to kill them because they, the killers, don’t like looking at them.

In wartime, green soldiers sometimes make this mistake. They see someone with a minor head wound, who has been knocked unconscious. Head wounds often bleed a lot, so they look awful, covered in blood. So the soldier *assumes* that they have been horribly, mortally injured, and decides to “put them out of their misery”, even though they just need a few stitches and some antibiotic ointment, and they will be fine.

There is little connection to how a person looks and how they feel. This is why hospitals use an “on the scale of 1 to 10, how much does it hurt?” chart, to find out by asking the patient. Even skilled professionals don’t know how much pain an individual is feeling.

This is why there is a whole specialty of nursing called Pain Management. From little ouchy places to agonized, whole body spasms, they are trained to neutralize pain. Often they are very skilled at doing so, and they have a huge array of pharmaceuticals and other techniques at their disposal. Even the worst possible pain imaginable can be dealt with this way.

So take away the pain, and what other reason might there be for killing someone? For the most part, what is left is enormous amounts of self-pity. The sick person will have it, and those around them will project their own self-pity on the sick person. This translates to: “I would rather be dead, than (fill in the blank).”

And this can be petty beyond belief. People who with a temporarily bloated sense of self-pity, want to die, or want others to die, because they don’t look pretty, or they have an itch they can’t scratch, or they are depressed, etc., etc.

They momentarily forget that death is forever.

[wagglebee]

Excellent points!

[SECURE AMERICA]

The problem is human beings are not God but many think they are or want to play God. Then aslo many want to play devil. Once you legally allow huan beings to kill their loved ones (even iof for the best intentions) you will find that many many people are killed for all the wrong reson. You can claim to have all the controls you think will stop that but human beings are ingenoius in getting around controls and restrictions.
This is a slippery slope we should just stay away from.

[SECURE AMERICA]

Socialist Contry’s confuse me to no end.
Killing babies is okay. In fact encouraged.
Now they want to kill their old folks, the mentally ill, the termnimally ill and those tnat supposedly WANT to die.
But execute their murderers and child rapists? NO WAY that is wrong, how dare you suggest that.....

[Soothesayer]

A child that is a unique being the likes of which will never be born again. People believe only in the importance of pleasure/comfort and the value of nothing else.

[stripes1776]

I don’t understand the mindset behind sitting beside that loved one while he intakes poison. Unless it’s simply to always make life easier for the relative.

Yes, I think that is the reason. People today think that they must never suffer--never suffer in old age and never suffer watching some else suffer. If euthanasia is an act of love, then it is an act of self-love.

[dbz77]

Is there a difference between merely allowing someone to die of an illness and actually poisoning someone?

I can understand if a terminally ill or seriously injured person refuses treatment, even if such treatment is the only way to avoid dying prematurely. And yet, to poison someone, or shoot them, is an entirely different matter.