Euthanasia

[Blackheart]

Originally posted by jerseydevil


It's not so much that humans aren't aware - I think most people seem not to want to face the fact that humans are just animals and we still have instincts. Religion gets in the way of most people accepting this, at least the one's I've talked to. We're hardwired to want to survive. It's very hard to overcome the survival instinct.

No it's not. I watch people do it every day. It's a little technique called denial.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Blackheart


No it's not. I watch people do it every day. It's a little technique called denial.

Which part are you referring to - the fact that people don't want to accept the animal instincts or the overcoming the survival instinct?

[Blackheart]

Both.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Blackheart
I just think that human behavior is a lot more animalistic than most humans are aware of.

Yeah. Interesting that when we are at our most happy/sad/angry etc, we revert back to that wonderful baser nature. Sex, tantrums, laughter. Sometimes, it's the only way that humans can express something. Grief for instance. You don't sit there quietly analysing it. You pummel things. You cry. Maybe you rage. Either way, it's at times like this, that the factor that makes us human completely disipates.

[afro-elf]

Thantos and Eros

Thanatos you forgot your "a'" , but hell i'm the Elven lord of typing errors


Are you considering suicide as your denial of survival instint and/or something else.


good insight Bop

[azalea]

So how would you all classify overeating to obesity, engaging in unprotected sex, doing dangerous drugs, drinking and smoking heavily over a long period of time, etc, etc.? (No, no I don't mean "a rip-snorting good time!" I mean, obviously the survival instincts aren't kicking in for those people -- or is it just in situations of immediate danger? Are "the fittest" ones who avoid danger by thinking ahead about if a situation will be life threatening or the ones who get to that situation and take a course of action to avoid death?)

[jerseydevil]

There is a survival instinct that kicks in under all those circumstances (excpet for the sex and eating because your body has no idea that something bad can happen). When people first smoke - they usually cough - the body tries to reject it. After smoking a couple of times - it gets used to it.

Drinking - if you drink to much - your body automatically tries to throw it up to get the poisons out. There are many times when the body attempts to protedct it self - even when the person is killing themselves knowingly or unknowingly.

--------------------------------------------
I rethought about some of this and the above stuff I said may not be "instinctual" but more the way the body is programmed. Is there much of a difference though?

[Rosie-Lass]

I don't have much of an opinion on Euthanasia because I know so little about it, but I would generally say nay. However, in some cases it is a human right to be allowed to die and i would like to give a good example of someone who was denied the right to do so even though she could talk (through a voice synthesiser or similar) and think.
It was in the news here in GB recently that a lady named Diane Pretty, who had Motor Neurone Disease, a progressive and terminal illness that gradually kills a sufferer, wanted to commit suicide with the help of her husband.
She wanted to take sleeping pills. The reason? She was afraid. Motor Neurone Disease, in its very final stages, will gradually asphyxiate the sufferer and they will finally get so little oxygen to the cells that, even though they are almost comatose, they are still alive. That was not a prospect she wished to contemplate and she just wanted to die. She took her case to the highest court in Europe and three judges attended the hearing. They still denied her the right to a dignified death. She died a couple of weeks ago after going through the symptoms I have described here.
This was contrary to what another lady, who had another terminal illness, Miss B, decided to do. She refused medication and chose to die on the 10th April. A dignified death with her family around her. Although the disease was different, the two cases are similar-both ladies wishing for the right to die when they chose to.
What I am unable to understand is how these two cases are different and why Diane Pretty was denied this right.
I dont know whether any of the rest of you people have heard about these stories but I think that Diane Pretty should have been able to commit suicide with her husband's help without him being charged with manslaughter. There are good reasons against it but I still don't see the judge's reasoning - that it would have caused her husband to be charged. For carrying out his wife's final wish. Didn't they used to gove a final wish to condemned prisoners? Isn't this the same. She was condemned and all her final wish was was for some sleeping pills.

[jerseydevil]

There is a difference in the two cases, althought I don't agree with the judges decision. Government should GET OUT of people's personal lives.

The reason the two cases are different is because you can always refuse treatment. The Diane case was where a physical action was being taken to end her life, the other was passive action (denying treatment).

In the US, because of freedom of religion, some religions do not accept blood transfusions or surgery or medical care. It's been a contentious issue here when parents refuse to give their children medical care based on their religious beliefs, Many children have died because of their parents belief against the intervention of medical care to save someone. Some parents have been taken to jail for child endangerment.

I've often thought that in the US - to avoid people from going to jail - to set up a religion that permits assisted suicide. Then the courts really can't touch adults that perform it. What makes up a religion anyway - other than a set of common beliefs?

[Rosie-Lass]

Yes but these common beliefs would have to be in contact with all other religions. You can't just have a religion which believes in euthanasia because those people might be Hindu, Jew etc.
They would only share 1 belief. If that were the case they should just get together and do a mass campaign. That would make a whole lot more sense, even if a religion based entirely on those beliefs were possible.

[jerseydevil]

I know the religious thing isn't practical. I was just joking. But nothing prevents people from just claiming it was part of their religious beliefs. I'm atheist - so it can be my "religious belief" for all anyone knows. What is religion any way except a shared set of beliefs as I said before. The government wouldn't accept this argument and I understand that perfectly well - so I have taken the more logical road and have written letters in support of euthanasia to the government.

I don't think the government has any role to play in me determining or me letting certain people determine when I should die if I am mentally or physically incapacitated.

I think governement should also stay out of telling people to wear seat belts or motorcycle helmets. If someone is stupid enough not to wear them and is severely injured - it's their problem. The government is starting to treat adults as children - and that I AM COMPLETELY AGAINST.

[Wayfarer]

Originally posted by jerseydevil
Did I miss something? Where did the government come into the euthanasia talk? The government should absolutely have no role in determining whether a medically ill patient should live OR DIE.

I'm sorry to say, but this has been an issue since Nazi germany. Hitler's Eugenics program was basically a massive campaign of Involuntray euthanasia.

Now, fast forward to today. The netherlands have, since 1984, allowed euthanasia at the express request of a patient. Physician Assisted Suicide currently accounts for about three precent of all deaths.

In 1995 a study found that perhaps one in five of those assisted suidcides is performed without the consent of the victim. In 15% of cases the doctor avoided discussing it with the patient, and simply went ahead.

In 2000, the dutch parliment passed a law allowing the doctor or the family to have a patient killed, whether or not they consent, whether or not they suffer from a terminal illness.

Now they're looking into providing a suicide pill to people who patients 'who are healthy but simply ready to die'.

I don't want to use a slippery slope argument, but that scares me.

Jersydevil, please understand that it's not just the government that I worry about. Whether it's the government, the doctor, the family, or the patient themself, the power of life or death is a dangerous thing.

I pose a question: If anyone could step into a suicide booth when they felt ready to die, how many of us would have gotten past puberty?
What if your family could have killed you off when they felt like it?
How many patients 'beyond recovery' have recovered enough to lead a productive life? Do you really think that doctors should be allowed to decite that they're hopeless and kill them off?
And lastly, what about all the undesirable members of society?

But I digress...

My stance is that ONLY passive euthanazia should be allowed, and then ONLY if the patient is dependant on life support, unable to function, and has no chance of recovery.

I think that people who seek active euthanazia fall into two categories-the terminally ill, and the chronically ill. I really don't think that either calls for Eunthanasia. I believe that the terminally ill should be treated for pain and allowed to die as comfortably as possible, and I think that chronically ill people who want to die are basically acting stupid. I've heard to many stories about severely disabled people who managed to live productive lives to condone that.

And lastly, unequivocally, emphatically, involuntary euthenazia should NEVER be allowed, in ANY circumstances.

[jerseydevil]

My stance is different - and that's why I don't think that anyone should get in the way of MY wishes. If I get terminal cancer or a stroke that incompacitates me or alzheimers - I want to be KILLED. I do not want to live a life of misery and pain. What's the sense of living if all you can do is sit in a bed all day and have your body wracked with pain or if you can just stair out a window? Is that life? Is that the way anyone would want to live?

I think that doctors and government should have no role in assisted suicide. Oregon, while I was living out there, passed a law allowing assisted suicide. The Federal Government has or is attempting to block it - they';ve taken Oregon to court over it. NOW that is scary since the Constitution states that any power not specifically given to the Federal Government in the Constiution is left to the STATES.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Atricle X; Constituation of the United States of America

As Madison stated in the collection of papers commonly referred to as "The Federalist Papers" in support of the Constitution-

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiations, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State
Number 45 of The Federalist Papers; James Madison

In other words - the United States government has NO BUSINESS getting involved with whether Oregon allows euthanasia or not. Of course the Federal Government has been getting involved with domestic issues that it has no business getting involved with. The framers of the Constitution never invisioned the federal government having as much power as it now holds. That is what is scary to me.

[mirrille]

Yes.
I think I disagree with not allowing euthanasia because I believe that, ultimately, we take responsibility for our own lives and should be able to make our own decisions about what we want to do with them.
The government has no place telling someone that they can't commit suicide, although in less enlightened places, they'll still try to make it illegal. If you have a nice country that has money to spend on social programs, which is unlikely given that pretty much everyone is strapped for cash lately, you can offer counselling, medical care, and other kinds of support to people who feel helpless enough to consider it. And for a certain proportion of people, it might help. But people should have a choice. If in spite of all our best intentions, they still feel it's time to go, we have to let them go. It's about respecting the wishes of the person, and their right to have some control over their own lives.
Maybe in a similar situation, I would still chose to live through suffering. Most likely I wouldn't. But I want everyone else to be able to chose for themselves.

[Elf Girl]

I agree. If you definately cannot enjoy the remainder of your life, it is okay. If you are in a bad mood and just say, "hey, I think I'll die", it's not okay.

[Rosie-Lass]

If you are in a bad mood and just say, "hey, I think I'll die", it's not okay.

That is what anti-depressants are for.

[jerseydevil]

Not everyone wants help and anti-depressants don't always work. They also can't change the causes of a person's depression (unless it's chemical imbalance).

Why is it anyone elses business on whether someone chooses to take their own life? Commiting suicide is neither wrong or right - it is an extreme reaction to what someone feels is an unbearable situation. A situation that they feel there is no way of getting out of. I'm not sayign that if you know someone that is severely depressed that you shouldn't attempt to help, but lets' face it - most people that attempt/commit suicide are invisible to those around them until they do it. Then everyone is in shock - and going around saying "He/She was always so quiet, I never knew they would do something like that." When all the signs were there if people took any interest in the person's life to begin with.

Suicide, because of depression, does hurt the people close to them - but I still don't think anyone else can judge someone for doing it unless they've lived that person's life and know the pain they might have been feeling that made them take that drastic action.

[Rosie-Lass]

But if you're talking about that kind of attitude to death then maybe they haven't thought it through and need help.
Suicide is absolutely the last resort. People who take their own lives do it because they feel that nothing can help them and no-one understands. If they genuinely wanted to get better then they would seek help.

[Blackheart]

Errr. You guys don't mind if I euthanize the world do you?

I need to test my giant emp device, and it's probably going to cause massive fibrillation and seizures amongst the population.

Unless your're wearing a tinfoil hat and vest....

The federal govenrment wants so badly to control people's behavior, and how they think, but ultimately this is an illusion of control.

The damned things never did what the damned things were told to do by the damned things.

[jerseydevil]

That's murder if you kill someone that doesn't want to die. Completely different from euthanisia or suicide.

Since I'm not in the mood to die right now - yeah I do mind.