Posted on 12/08/2008 4:07:05 PM PST by wagglebee
Edinburgh, Scotland (LifeNews.com) -- The Scottish Parliament, the devolved national, unicameral legislature of Scotland, is not receptive to legislation to legalize assisted suicide in that portion of Great Britain. Margo MacDonald, the MSP behind the bill, failed to garner enough support to introduce the measure.
MacDonald is hoping to get a private member's bill introduced at Holyrood next year but only has the backing of four out of the 129 that comprise the legislative body.
That means she is 14 short of the number needed to get the bill introduced and well short of the level of support necessary to get an assisted suicide bill approved.
MacDonald's bill appears to be modeled after American laws in Oregon and Washington state that require a waiting period before a terminally ill patient can request a physician to provide a lethal drug prescription.
After realizing she didn't have enough support to get her measure introduced, she talked with the London Times about why she brought the bill.
"There are lots of people up and down Scotland who would like to make sure that they miss the last - and for them most intolerable - part of life, because of incapacity, loss of dignity, loss of control, insufferable pain perhaps," she said.
Pro-life advocates oppose assisted suicide and say that doctors should not be in the business of killing patients. They say patients should be given more help to cope with pain and depression and better hospice care.
Though a bill to legalize assisted suicide doesn't appear to be advancing in Scotland, pro-life advocates in England are more concerned.
A new piece of legislation, the Coroners and Justice Bill, which British Parliament officials announced at the start of the parliamentary year, will deal with assisted suicide. The measure, would reportedly modernize the law "to increase public understanding."
What that means, however, is another question.
The bill could make it more clear when people would be charged under the law for aiding in an assisted suicide, as in the case of Debbie Purdy.
John Smeaton, the director of the pro-life group Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, explained some of the concerns on Thursday.
"We are concerned that radical, so-called right-to-die MPs or peers - urged on by media coverage for assertions that some elderly people have a so-called duty to die - might seek to use the bill to weaken the legal protection of the right to life," Smeaton says.
Since you refuse to reason, listen to reason, and are dead to right and wrong, it is completely useless to discuss anything with you.
Your hellish mentality is a perfect example of why basic morality and acceptance of good and evil, right and wrong, is the foundation of human civilization. Without that ground, society becomes nothing but feral humans who are worse than animals, since animals can only follow their instincts. Humans have the capacity to know the difference between right and wrong, and choose between them. Animals don’t. A human who refuses to admit the existence of universal, unchanging right and wrong is more dangerous than a mad dog.
Thank you for proving the above to be true.
Right and wrong have nothing to do with what I think should be legal. I think euthanasia, indeed, any suicide, is wrong. But I also think it should be legal. What you assume - that I am “dead to right and wrong” is so far off base that it is absurd.
Got it, you are just like every other liberal/libertarian who believes (drugs, prostitution, abortion, euthanasia, pornography, etc.) is wrong, but you don't feel that it's right to tell others that it's wrong.
You just think euthanasia should be "safe and legal and rare," is that it?
It is abundantly clear that you have NO IDEA what you are talking about.
No, YOU want the government to condone murder.
I know exactly what I’m talking about. Liberals believe they are “do-gooders”. The whole “bleeding heart” insult is meant to mock this point of view. Liberals, at least the American variety, believe in authoritarian measures to force certain actions out of society. Libertarians believe in the opposite - the allowance of any action that does not infringe on the rights of others, and no action required by government.
So, you are saying that liberals generally OPPOSE prostitution, illegal drugs, pornography, abortion and euthanasia?
It seems that like most other libertarians you adopt a defensive state of denial when it is demonstrated how closely your views correspond with liberalism.
No, but they want those things mandated by the state. That is the difference, and you seem to think it’s not worth notice. My views are, very simply put, nothing like liberalism. I’m not in favor or support of any of those things.
They want these things to be legal, JUST LIKE YOU DO.
If you respond, don't expect one back; you are either naturally or deliberately obtuse, either way I have better things to do.
Fine, I will make this my final post to you.
If something is currently illegal (as euthanasia is), the ONLY ways it can become legal is via a legislative act, a court or voter referendum that removes the prohibition.
Which is not the action being “mandated”. Mandated indicates support. Legality means the governmnt can be indiffierent, which is what the government in a civilized nation should be.
OMG. Could you be any more sociopathic if you tried?
Wag, I'm guessing a combination of naturally and deliberately obtuse. Yeah, a little of both, I believe.
Isn't the denial of assisted suicide in fact government intruding on a person's right to decide when and how to end their life?
What was the result of Terri’s autopsy related to her brain?
It confirmed that she had a brain injury, but was still alive prior to being starved and dehydrated to death. The medical examiner confirmed that a diagnosis of PVS cannot be made from an autopsy, and must be made by a doctor who examined the live patient, like the doctors who examined her and determined she was not PVS. (The only diagnoses of PVS came from doctors who never actually performed the examination.) The autopsy also confirmed that her brain was dehydrated from thirteen days of being forcefully deprived of water. The autopsy confirmed that she died because of the starvation/dehydration imposed on her. Off hand, I can’t think of any other determinations the autopsy revealed related to her brain, but there may be more. Basically, it confirmed what was already known before she was killed.
"Terri Schiavo suffered severe, irreversible brain damage that left that organ discolored and scarred, shriveled to half its normal size, and damaged in nearly all its regions, including the one responsible for vision, according to an autopsy report released yesterday."
That puts a lie to all those 'videos'.
LOL. No, it puts a lie to the theory that starvation and dehydration are euphoric. Yes, dehydration does dehydrate the brain.
So yes, the autopsy did confirm that her brain was dehydrated. That was no surprise.
The trolls never see the irony in their position. They claim justification for killing people based on their victims’ alleged lack of brain function. Then they demonstrate a lack of brain function on their own part, which places them well below the threshold of what they claim justifies killing.
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