Assisted Suicide Backers Mislead the Public: Not About Alleviating Suffering

Life News ^ | 8/11/08 | Wesley J. Smith

[wagglebee]

LifeNews.com Note: Award winning author Wesley J. Smith is special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network. His current book is Consumer’s Guide to a Brave New World.

I have become so sick and tired of the baloney that swirls around assisted suicide advocacy like gruel in a blender.

Assisted suicide is not really about the rare case when nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering--which has not been the case yet in any legalized jurisdiction from the Netherlands, to Switzerland, to Oregon. Rather, it is about establishing the right to what in essence would be death on demand.

This is clearly stated in a speech given by Ludwig Minelli, the suicide zealot who heads Dignitas.

Writing about the Swiss Supreme Court ruling granting a right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill -- which I wrote about here -- Minelli claims that suicide and assisted suicide both are human rights. In other words, the so-called limitations that would limit this killing to the terminally or hopelessly ill are bogus.

From his speech (no link):

If the Right to Suicide is a Human Right, and no doubt whatsoever can be raised after this outstanding Swiss decision, we must accept that, in order to make use of this right, there must be no legal requirements other than that the person has the mental capacity needed to decide to end his or her own life. Conditions which insisted that somebody must be terminally or severely ill would interfere with the essence of that Human Right. Human Rights are, inherently, unconditional. They cannot be made subject to conditions – this is fundamental to their being meaningful for the humans who bear them.

But this so-called right is even more that an individual right to do with one's own body what one will--it includes the right to help from others to make sure one gets dead:

"Does the fact that there is a risk of about 9 to 1 or even of about 49 to 1 of failure with every suicide attempt have some impact on the consideration of this Human Right? I think it does.

If the European Convention on Human Rights really does guarantee the Right to self-determination and, thereby, the Right to Suicide, this right cannot exist, in reality, while there is such a high risk of failure. This is especially true given that the risk is not only that of failing to die but the far greater risk of ending up in a much more desperate condition than before."

Minelli gives lip service to prevention, but if a patient knows that death is at the end of that process, prevention just becomes a hoop to jump through, indeed a hoop that would fall by the wayside as other so-called guidelines have wherever assisted suicide is legalized.

It is also worth noting that the speech was given to Dutch euthanasia advocates who already live in the most euthanasia friendly country in the world--and yet it is still not enough. That is because it never will be enough.

So this is the future that assisted suicide/euthanasia advocates either explicitly seek, or will bring about whether or not that is there intention since the logic here is impeccable.

The answer, of course, is that there is no "right" to suicide, that societies have the duty to protect all people's lives--even from self destruction--and that, as Jefferson put it in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life is inalienable.

So too with selling oneself into slavery and declaring a right to burn your arms with cigarettes--both "choices" that should also be prohibited. Such actions not only harm the individual, but are profoundly subversive of decency and equal regard for the lives of all people in society.

[wagglebee]

The answer, of course, is that there is no "right" to suicide, that societies have the duty to protect all people's lives--even from self destruction--and that, as Jefferson put it in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life is inalienable.

Perfect!

[wagglebee]

Pro-Life Ping

[wagglebee]

Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]

[wagglebee]

Ping

[Mrs. Don-o]

Wesley J. Smith is a very good writer (despite that mangled metaphor in the first senrence: baloney swirling like gruel? Huh?) --- and his website is always full of timely and well-researched info.

I treasure people like Wes.

[hunter112]

...as Jefferson put it in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life is inalienable.

Perfect!

And the irony here is that Jefferson said this while owning slaves.

Maybe that's neither here nor there, but there has to be some compromise out there between those of you who think that everyone is out to off you as soon as you catch the flu after the age of 75, and those of us who would like to think that we'd have a bit of help when we realize that the fight is over. If your attitudes persist in the laws, then you force me to make the decision to take my life while I still can, rather than wait for feebleness to set in, if I'm dying of a fatal illness.

[the invisib1e hand]

Assisted Suicide Backers Mislead the Public: Not About Alleviating Suffering

I beg to differ.

It is about alleviating suffering.

It's about alleviating the suffering of insurance companies management and stockholders.
It's about relieving the suffereing of inconvenience by people who have to deal with aging and infirm.
It's about alleviating the suffering of family members who would rather not have to think about it.
It's about alleviating the suffering of the Social Security fund.
It's about alleviating the suffering of medical industry that can't get enough margin on what insurance companies allow.
It's about alleviating doctors who have to work 40 hours to make what they used to in 10, and have to take orders from some suit, on top of it.

Feel free to add your own.

[the invisib1e hand]

sounds like you’re about due for a pill.

[BykrBayb]

It never was about alleviating suffering. It was and is all about bloodlust.

[wagglebee]

Don’t forget the incredibly selfish children and grandchildren who dream of alleviating all financial pressures if their parents and grandparents will die before they spending their money.

[wagglebee]

And the irony here is that Jefferson said this while owning slaves.

So, we should just ditch the Declaration of Independence and Constitution because Jefferson, Washington, et al owned slaves or do you subscribe to the "living, breathing document" that simply means whatever a majority of nine unelected judges would like it to mean?

[BykrBayb]

You have a point. Since you put it that way, yes, it is about alleviating suffering. It’s about alleviating the suffering of loved ones who don’t love back.

[LaineyDee]

In other words........"it includes the right to help from others to make sure one gets dead:"

Most of us call that murder.

[arthurus]

Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia and Foetal Stem Cell research are all about one thing, the normalization of the concept and practice of the “community” determining to use some people for the benefit of other, more favored people. To destroy the lives of those deemed to have an unaccepted Quality of life for the benefit and convenience of the favored ones. The Eloi do not yet look much different from the Morlocks, though.

[LaineyDee]

Exactly....

[Drango]

Don’t forget the incredibly selfish children and grandchildren who dream of alleviating all financial pressures if their parents and grandparents will die before they spending their money.

Sad. In your twisted, macabre world no one loves their parents, siblings or relatives and would want to follow their wishes on end of life issues. Sad, just sad.

If you or your loved ones want to suffer, have at it. Suffer all you want. But spare the rest of you your sanctimonious judgments on motive. And keep away from my family.

[hunter112]

Most of us call that murder.

I guess I use the more narrow definition of murder, where the person getting dead does not want this to occur.

[LaineyDee]

Don’t forget the incredibly selfish children and grandchildren who dream of alleviating all financial pressures if their parents and grandparents will die before they spending their money.

I quit working at a nursing home where the Dr. pulled Grandma's feeding tube at the grandkids request.....because.....she wasn't getting any better and it was "just prolonging the misery". The lady was fine....still breathing...heart beating... but had extreme dementia and didn't recognize them. I refused to be a part of that.

I'm in hospice now....and I really had a misconception about it before taking the job. Mostly because of Terry Schiavo. Our hospice is home-related and not facility related. I've never worked with a more loving and concerned group of Dr.'s and nurses before. We help the family take care of the terminally ill in their home, keeping them comfortable until they die. If we suspected the grandson, husband or other caregivers were trying to "off grandma" for the good of the family....or any other reason.....we'd be turning them in to APS. Everyone deserves dignity.....whether it inconveniences others or not.

[LaineyDee]

You can get yourself dead without getting others involved.

[hunter112]

Nope, we need not ditch the Constitution, etc, but just because an utterance came from a Founding Father, that does not make it supreme wisdom in every possible case, especially ones that 18th Century minds could not possibly have envisioned. In the time of the Founding Fathers, life was nasty, brutal and short for many people, the vast majority of disease was uncurable, and they could not have possibly imagined life support machines of the type every hospital has today.

I seem to remember reading that there was a moral objection to anesthesia in surgery, on the grounds that it kept a person from the "grace of God" that was believed to have been imparted by suffering. I'm glad that we got past that!