Posted on 03/14/2009 10:16:20 AM PDT by wagglebee
Whenever the debate over euthanasia arises, I wonder whether opponents of assisted suicide have ever seen a loved one battle a terminal disease. Written descriptions fall flat in comparison to actually watching a person die in front of you — watching as her body thins and her eyes shrink and recede. You see a face become nothing more than pronounced cheekbones and a receding hairline. It’s difficult to watch; it must be almost unbearable to experience.
The reason I wonder whether critics have ever experienced such a tragic situation is that their arguments often come off as juvenile. Kevin Smith, the executive director of a New Hampshire-based conservative think tank, was recently quoted in The Dartmouth as saying, “Doctors are there to do good … They’re there to help people, not to put people to death” (“Assisted suicide bill proposed,” Feb. 27). Ideally, doctors would not be responsible for ending lives, but this is not an ideal world. Indeed, terminal diseases are about as far from ideal as you can get, and it is both crude and unproductive to frame the euthanasia debate in terms of “good” and “bad” actions. The argument is far more complex than such vague and simple terms.
I’ve frequently heard from critics of assisted suicide that patients could still take their lives without the help of doctors. They contend that such a brutal practice does not need to be legitimized or institutionalized. But this argument seems odd to me, especially considering how much these critics profess to value human life. Having a terminally ill family member choose to end his life is a horrific situation that I hope I never have to experience. But the misery of the situation would only be compounded if that family member’s attempt to end his life had to be messy — or worse yet, was unsuccessful. To push an already hopeless person to something as shameful as overdosing on painkillers and leaving a suicide note seems to connote the ultimate disrespect for human life.
It’s true that medical breakthroughs can occur seemingly overnight. A patient who was hopelessly terminal may wake up to a scientific miracle and be cured. But it’s inhumane and cruel to prolong a person’s agony because of the minute chance that a cure is on the horizon. Along the same lines, critics of euthanasia often cite the Hippocratic Oath — which implicitly prohibits euthanasia — as a reason for proscribing assisted suicide. Perhaps, however, we should reevaluate how strictly we follow a creed that was written over 2000 years ago. If assisted suicide is morally wrong, we should arrive at that conclusion on our own.
For me, the most offensive criticism of assisted suicide is the argument that says euthanasia devalues human life. What bothers me about this claim is that it’s laden with misguided value judgments. It suggests that those who choose to die are cowardly — that they’re taking the easy way out and demeaning the value of their own lives in the process. It’s easy to offer platitudes about the theoretical value of life. It’s far more difficult to be so self-righteous when one is sitting in a hospice bed, having endured months of unbearable pain. If anything, those who choose to die affirm the value of their lives by demanding that these lives mean more than just a breathing tube and a morphine-induced stupor. Terminal patients who choose to die want to be remembered as something more than a semi-conscious skeleton.
Death is tragic, traumatic and uncomfortable to talk about, and it becomes even more difficult to address when we feel that a person is choosing to end his life prematurely. Still, to say that euthanasia demeans a person is just inaccurate. Those patients who choose to take their lives refuse to buy “honor” at the price of physical destruction and emotional trauma; nothing could be a more positive affirmation of life’s value. Assisted suicide is fortunately something that most of us will never have to consider. Still, we should hesitate to offer moral judgments about people whose situations are unfathomable, and above all, we should avoid reducing the discussion to naïve conceptions of “good” and “bad.”
The left NEVER wants to accept that there is good and bad, right and wrong. Evil DOES exist and it is naïve to pretend otherwise.
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I have watched — twice. Next question ...
Yes, many of us have.
Written descriptions fall flat in comparison to actually watching a person die in front of you
Absolutely, which only emphasizes my resolve never to live with the memory of being the cause of my loved one's death.
Amen
My Daddy died of congestive heart failure back in October, in a hospice where everything was done for his comfort by the Franciscan Sisters and a staff of the best volunteers and medical people anybody could ever ask for. Daddy suffered oxygen starvation to the brain toward the end of his life and was absolutely not himself, and many times he said he wanted to die. He did not know what he was saying, it was very clear from listening to him all day long. Thank God that those Sisters and their helpers did not think he did.
With so many of the Younger Generation considering their Boomer parents to be ATMs and audibly fretting that their parents are going to live, like, forEVer, maaan, and *spend our inheritance* I do not want a vote held on whether or not I have lived long enough, thanks, so somebodys kid can have a class trip to Paris or a new car before all my money is spent on my medical bills.
“The left NEVER wants to accept”...that someday they’re
going to meet Joe Black too.
Abortion, assisted suicide and so forth, are for the other people.
The crux of Mr. Mestel's pitch ... away with those pesky 2,000 year old dogmas. Let's reinvent the wheel with each successive generation. Those old fogies didn't know anything, anyway.
Talk about juvenile, that's teenager logic.
"Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God, commend their souls in good deeds to the faithful Creator." 1 Peter 4:19
One step away from “An Obligation to Die”.
How about a “right to live” piece?
I have watched once. Still feel the same way. Actually it is kind of ironic to see leftists argue for assisted suicide and against the Second Amendment. The argument against the Second Amendment of the right to own and bear arms is generally that the gun is a dangerous mechanism and can get into the wrong hands. That’s my concern about assisted suicide.
It’s interesting to see the various “death wishes” chronicled in the Bible: Job, Jonah, Elijah, to name just a few.
One takes power away from the state, and the other grants more to it. That’s the consistency behind the apparent contradiction.
Particularly since Elijah never died a physical death. That’s one serious repudiation of a “death wish.”
Yes it is. So?
A right to die, will quickly become a duty to die. This already happens in places like England where certain treatments are denied under national health care.
And enough with the agonizing descriptions of slow death. Everyone does it someday. In the end, make em comfortable and accept that its just what is. But you dont pinch off their oxygen tube.
Its the circle of life there, simba.
And Job's "death wish" was almost certainly from depression related to a crisis of faith.
It takes extreme hubris for the culture of death to assume that those of us who oppose their agenda have never had to watch a loved one die of a terminal illness. I think you would be hard pressed to find any adult who has not been through this.
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