Posted on 03/02/2008 12:56:47 PM PST by wagglebee
In a victory for Washington's proposed Death With Dignity initiative, a judge on Friday refused to add the words "physician-assisted suicide" to the ballot or official voters pamphlet description.
"It is a somewhat loaded term," said Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham. He said it conjures up images of Jack Kevorkian, the Michigan physician who claimed to have helped more than 100 people die before being convicted of murder in one of the cases.
Instead of "suicide," voters will read that Initiative 1000 would allow some terminally ill patients "to request and self-administer lethal medication" prescribed by a doctor. Wickham's decision largely upheld a description written by the state attorney general's office.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
I suppose under the Ninth Amendment that individual states could make assisted suicide/euthanasia legal, and, by the same token, they could also make murder, rape, robbery and arson legal. However, to say that any of these crimes would have been considered protected “rights” by the Founding Fathers is absurd.
“I suppose under the Ninth Amendment that individual states could make assisted suicide/euthanasia legal, and, by the same token, they could also make murder, rape, robbery and arson legal. However, to say that any of these crimes would have been considered protected rights by the Founding Fathers is absurd.”
Not at all. First we have to decide what are crimes. I agree that rape murder etc are a crime. But suicide only affects you directly and it is clear to me that if falls under the right to self determination.
After all who are you to try to tell me what to do with my life? Are you going to stand over a cancer victem and tell them they have to suffer the tortures of hell for a few more weeks because you say it’s best for them, or because you say so?
That sounds like the mind set of a lefty or a sadist.
I’m not sure that you are clear on what this initiative in Washington is referring to.
We ARE NOT talking about suicide. We are talking about physician assisted suicide (which is really the same as euthanasia).
And as I explained earlier, there is NO MANDATE that forces a state to make ANYTHING a crime. However, this does not mean that it’s right and it does not mean that it is somehow a Constitutional right.
The law may say that the suicide-requesting patient must be rational, un-coerced, and terminal --- but there are no requirements that the patient's situation must be assessed to determine whether clinical depression or family coercion or emotional manipulation might be factors in his decision. How is a doctor going to assess coercion?
And if the doctor goes ahead and prescribes the lethal overdose, there is no safeguard whatsoever that the dose will be self-administered by the patient, and not dissolved in a bowl of pudding and spooned into the patient's mouth by an impatient Heir Apparent.
The law does not protect the patient. It does protect the doctor, because the doctor is immune from prosecution if he can demonstrate that he acted in "good faith." Unless he accepted a bribe in the presence of witnesses, lack of "good faith" is practically impossible to prove.
“However, this does not mean that its right and it does not mean that it is somehow a Constitutional right.”
I say again.... Have you read the 9th amendment?
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