Posted on 05/09/2011 4:12:50 PM PDT by wagglebee
A new national survey in England finds disabled Britons are opposed to the national government legalizing the practice of assisted suicide, and one pro-life group is welcoming the results.
The survey, commissioned by disability group Scope, found 70% of disabled people are “concerned about pressure being placed on other disabled people to end their lives prematurely” “if there were a change in the law on assisted suicide.” The survey also found that most young adults share the concerns of older generations about the dangers of legalizing assisted suicide.
The survey found 77% of disabled people aged 18-24 and 71% of disabled people aged 25-34 expressed those concerns.
Anthony Ozimic, the communications manager for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), responded to the poll, saying, “We welcome this survey and take encouragement from its findings. Scope, which commissioned the survey, is not part of the pro-life movement and there is no suggestion of it being partisan.”
“The survey’s questions were worded fairly, unlike recent general public opinion polls which use the pro-euthanasia lobby’s euphemisms, such as ‘assisted dying’. Disabled people, including young adults, are increasingly alarmed by the celebrity-driven push for legalizing assisted suicide. Disabled people want help to live well and die naturally, not lethal injections or poison-pills,” he added.
This year, assisted suicide backers in England have been pressing again for legalization of the practice and, in January, they went further by trashing disabled people in the process.
In the British Medical Journal, Tony Delamothe wrote a column titled “One and a Half Truths About Assisted Dying,” in which he disparaged the disabled.
“Sixteen months ago I argued that the debate on assisted dying had been hijacked by disabled people who wanted to live and that it should be reclaimed for terminally ill people who wanted to die,” he said.
But American bioethicist Wesley J. Smith, in a blog post, called him on the carpet.
“Thanks to the spread of suicide tourism, the UK is going through another in a series of pushes to legalize assisted suicide. As with the last time, when a bill was introduced in the House of Lords, a commission is studying the issue. And advocates are pretending that their goal is what it clearly is not,’ he writes.
Smith says the pro-assisted suicide activism in the United Kingdom “has explicitly not been limited to the terminally ill” and writes the example of the bill in the Scottish Parliament to legalize the practice, saying MSP Margo MacDonald is referenced by Delamothe.
“Yet, it specifically would have permitted assisted suicide for people with non terminal disabilities,” he notes.
1) we have already done that. It is called the "death penalty" (except here in California where it is the "I will outlive all the jurors, judges and DAs with endless appeals" penalty).
2) False dichotomy. Admitting an individual has the final say on his/her life or end thereof does NOT mean we "give" the State anything. It is the opposite: it REMOVES the State's right to intervene.
We are close to agreeing except whether the person has the right to end their own life and that is, in the long run, a moot point.
In the long run all life and death issues are moot. ;)
Authoritative citations?
Too bad...it, like all our natural rights, is given to us by our Creator.
Rights and freedoms are complementary.
Free speech implies the right not to have to share your political views.
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is not a mandate to carry a gun.
The Right of Peaceable Assembly is complemented by the freedom from having to attend a government rally.
The Freedom of Worship includes the right to skip church.
Freedom from the requirement of self-incriminating testimony doesn't mean you are forbidden from testifying.
And the right to life includes the right to end that life.
It's not a moot point. Many people figure they can end things when they get bad enough, but fail to realize that by the time they are ready, they aren't able physically. So people are now killing themselves before they want to, just to be sure they don't get trapped by infirmity.
[...] there is no sense legislating it unless you are trying to give the State the power to end OTHER people’s lives.
That's not the only power they want. How about the British, who rescued a guy who'd slit his throat, then hanged him for the crime of attempted suicide. The rope tore the stitches open, so they...oh, nevermind, but it's an illustration of how sick these ghouls are who want to restrict the rights of others.
Documents can be forged and disabled people can end up dead without their consent. That’s more murder.
When you support death for a person who is pressured into it, that negates your claim to support that person's right to choose for themselves.
The Statists love to use straw-man cases. The argument is always that because it is possible that some theoretical one-in-a-million soul might benefit all should come under the heel of some new "beneficent" policy, regardless of the obvious harms which will befall rights and liberties of the 999,999-in-a-million others.
Of course it would, which is why I don't support death for a person who is pressured into it.
But, frankly, it has been my experience that it's FAR more likely for people to be pressured into living, with others chiding them into enduring unspeakable pain for the benefit of those around them.
When you falsely interpret someone's coerced agreement as their own free will, regardless of the fact that they were pressured into it, and you know it was never their own decision, but you lie and say that it was, that negates your claim to support their right to have their real decisions honored. So it's too late to pretend you don't support offing someone who was pressured into it.
Non sequitur.
Do you assume that when you pressure someone to live, then you’ve subverted their free will?
I point out that we can’t assume that just because someone tries to apply pressure, it doesn’t mean the person didn’t choose willingly. A person can make a decision despite attempts to apply pressure.
If someone is pressured to die they did NOT make the choice willingly. They were coerced, pressured.
verb (used with object)
10.to force (someone) toward a particular end; influence:
Example: They pressured him into accepting the contract.
5. A compelling or constraining influence, such as a moral force, on the mind or will: pressure to conform; peer-group pressure.
Doesn't sound like free will to me.
“Assisted” suicide in Europe has probably been done a lot without any indication the patient wants to die. I remember stories about it, but I couldn’t find them.
You’re right. That isn’t free will. Many euthanasia advocates claim their reason for supporting it is because they support free will. It’s rare to find someone who openly promotes euthanasia that clearly subverts free will.
Hell, it was done to Terri Schiavo based on a conversation that a sociopath "recalled" having years after her accident and after the sociopath had moved in with another woman and, most importantly, after Terri won a lot of money.
Of course Terri wasn't suicide, because everyone knows that food and water have long been considered "extraordinary life support."
I’ve read many of those same stories. The people behind those non-voluntary killings will usually claim they were acting in good faith on what they believed their victims would have wanted. Rarely do they openly admit to pressuring their victims to comply.
They don’t realize that it DOES subvert free will when pressure is applied to another’s will. It opens the door to euthanizing anyone too. It’s a slippery slope and “free will” is a lie.
As a matter of fact, Terri’s estranged husband had already testified in court about her pro-life wishes in regards to her own life in the very situation she was in. He testified that he had promised her he would take care of her for the rest of their lives. But that was when he wanted money “for her care and rehabilitation.” Once he had the money, she went from pro-life to pro-choice, and then further to pro-forced-death-by-torture.
Oh, I think they do realize. If they believed it was a person’s free will to die, they wouldn’t feel the need to pressure them.
I agree. That didn’t come out the way I meant it.
If it is legal, and convincing patients to die saves money, expect staff to be trained in high-pressure sales techniques to convince sick people to sign off on euthanasia.
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