The recent discussion about minors committing euthanasia has been picked up by some cogent observers.
The post modernists don’t consider culpability very seriously, since in their distorted world people’s morality is determined by outside forces–no such thing as conscience. So if a kid says kill me, that should control, even if on the other hand we would not consider a kid culpable if he commits a criime, he’s just the victim of bad parenting or a bad environment.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/a_concise_definition_of_liberalism.html
Not a “cop-out,” necessarily, as I will grant that circumstances can make all the difference in the right decision at the right time. The trouble is, many use circumstances to justify almost anything, which is why many others reject the use of “situational ethics” out of hand. I hope I am not so quick to do, though I am leery of the practice. So your comments in re: a sensitive 15 year-old do have weight, and my sympathies are moved by the hypothetical situation you present. However our discussion does not take place in a vacuum.
Sexual activity between legal adults and minors is illegal in almost all cases, the rare exceptions being highly regulated and socially shunned. The sale of tobacco products is forbidden to those under 18, and alcohol is not permitted until age 21. In many states nowadays one cannot even get a learner’s permit until one is 16, with full driving privileges contingent upon the age of 18 AND a supervised, un-coached test of both knowledge and skill.
Is driving Mom & Dad’s SUV to school or the mall really more important than choosing to commit suicide, however justifiable the choice may seem at the time? Is access to legally intoxicating substances more important than the ending of one’s own life? Is sexual gratification somehow more important than a child’s termination? (Some current U.S. abortion laws might suggest that possibility depending upon one’s viewpoint, but I digress.)
These limitations are codified because society collectively believes that children, however precocious, are still children: they may not generally be stupid (they aren’t in my experience), but they have neither gained the training in critical thinking, nor have they acquired the necessary life experience upon which to draw which would facilitate reasonable choices to be made in these matters. One may argue over the exact age appropriate to any/all of these decisions, of course, but the principle still remains and it leaves us with only two logical possibilities.
On the one hand, perhaps minors in general are actually mature enough to make these decisons on their own: maybe if a 9 year-old wants a glass of wine, we should let him have it; if a 12 year-old is smitten by her piano teacher, let the two of them enjoy each other sexually; if a young man of 15 is motivated to become a Navy Seal and his sister (age 10) wants to vote for Simon Cowell or Oprah Winfrey as president, let them; and let them all be responsible for the consequences, as they are mature and wise enough to consider them before making these decision(s), perhaps.
Or, on the other hand, maybe it simply means that the life of a child has become less important, somehow, than any of these other choices which to date have been limited by societal conventions. In other words, either everything else is being wrongfully witheld, or the deliberate ending of lives is just not as important, e.g, as the ability to buy a pack of cigarettes legally. Rationally, these are the only two options available.
As I believe that human existence trumps any of these other rights/responsibilities by far, I assert that the limits should remain, and further assert that a child is generally LESS capable of making the decision to end his or her own life. For this reason alone (and despite my sincere sympathies to you for the circumstances involving your friends, William) I am utterly opposed to the legal precedent under discussion.
You are an intelligent and cogent writer and we will have to consider the differences we have on some of these things to be derivative of serious consideration. That’s why i don’t mind a disagreement at all, I assume that intelligent people will see some things differently and make my points with energy and enthusiasm. We are both too old to worry about career or advancement–we can say what we think.
John, I appreciate your reasoned response, This is a much better way to encourage and advance a dialogue. I provoked you (my apologies), you provoked me and then everything degenerated into name-calling for a while.
It’s neither here nor there, but I was reacting initially to the JunkScience blog and the Washington Post, both of which are extensions (or corollaries) of Fox New in the U.S. and are generally dedicated to bashing “liberals” of all stripes and hues and stirring up their fan base. Much of what JunkScience publishes by way of scientific information is itself junk science. The blog is often a shill (unwittingly or not) for oil, gas, pharmaceutical, agricultural and other multi-national corporations, none of whom know the meaning of the word “ethics.” So that’s my bugbear, as it were.
But our debate is of quite another sort, and I will accept your compromise (not that you’re looking for my acceptance) of “adequate pain relief that may, in fact, hasten death.” From my perspective that demonstrates an adequate level of compassion. And I think that we can leave it at that.
I don’t want to get into another debate about abortion, which you introduced at the end of your post — although I recognize that it a closely related topic. I have a dozen projects lined up today and an increasingly impatient wife, who always wonders how I can spend so much time on the computer. But I will say that I have gradually changed my mind about third-trimester abortion, although I still generally support a woman’s right to elect abortion.
in the first and second trimesters.
The problem for me with the prohibition of third-semester abortion, even in the case of rape or incest, is a societal one. Too many pro-lifers, especially in the U.S., stop caring about the welfare of the fetus (and the mother) after the birth. So highly dysfunctional family structures are perpetuated, child abuse is rampant (quite often, these mothers consciously or unconsciously hate their children) and life is preserved but quality of life is severely compromised. This is NOT sufficient excuse for terminating a viable life but perhaps there are better systems for dealing with this issue in European countries. In the U.S. it’s generally everyone for themselves and good luck. Poverty and misery is pervasive among the lower classes. So this is perhaps a situation where the State could be of some use in terms of initiating systematic adoption programs, post-natal counselling and/or other solutions. .
.
No need to apologize for rambling, my friend. I’m a bit of rambler myself –and this response will no doubt demonstrate. .
I too have a problem with “tying the value of even my own life to some subjective measure of discomfort,” except that I would exempt myself from such a restriction. My opinion would be that my assessment of my own pain is NOT subjective but rather objective. It is based upon the pain that I am capable of enduring at a particular stage of my life and my own awareness of prognoses and outcomes
In simplest terms, this would be the equivalent of some sort of torture/interrogation scenario, where the torturers were applying thumb screws, splinters, or some modern equivalent of the Medieval rack. The victim might pass out from shock eventually, but would then wake up, only to be subjected to the same series of tortures. The question would then be — “how much could you stand before you “broke”? Or in the case of assisted dying, how much could you stand before you said “no more.”? Obviously, the threshold would be radically different for different people. (My wife, who is very sensitive to external stimuli and also has chronic back problems, jokes that I have no pain sensors. And it’s not that I’m not aware of pain — i have fairly severe arthritis — I just seem to have a “talent” for shifting my focus elsewhere. So my existential definition of “unbearable pain” might be quite different than my wife’s.
I’m still a little concerned that you would hold onto your hypothetical possibility that a person’s life would be invalidated by their voluntary election of death. Perhaps you could come up with a situation where that made sense, but I have been at the bedsides of two people who chose to end their lives after long exhausting illnesses with no hope of recovery (cancer in both instances), and they were good, thoughtful people who had led exemplary lives. I can’t imagine ever coming to the conclusion that their decision to end their lives somehow undermined or cast a negative light on the lives that they had led to that point. I just can’t wrap my head around that kind of judgment — it seems cruel and petty.
In one of his posts, John identified himself as a physician, but not an ER physician. Knowing that, I can further understand his position. I still think that the name-calling was unnecessary, but to a certain extent I provoked it, so I will take responsibility for that. Those who are “in the trenches” (not only foot soldiers but physicians, police, and caregivers generally) have a different perspective than I would. It’s ironic though, that their perceptions tend to run to extremes. Police are notorious for regarding everyone they encounter as a potential “perp.” And I knew a surgeon years ago (I was dating his daughter, so it was MANY years ago), who was reputed to be one of the best surgeons in the city where I was living at the time. I had a number of drunken conversations with him and learned, much to my distress, that he regarded people as bags of diseased (or potentially diseased) organs. He had a general contempt for the human condition and I heard much later that this is not an unusual state of mind for surgeons. Perhaps it is a form of protection. An ER physician, on the other hand, is dedicated not just to removing diseased organs but to saving lives, so I can see how he would be troubled by any indication that the person whose live he was trying to save did not value that life enough to work with him to save it. But still, for me it comes down to the prognosis for continued existence (possible recovery or terminal?) and the quality of the life being saved.
And you’re right — I’ve been avoiding “the central topic of the original post,” simply because it’s very hard for me to sort out. After I shut down the computer last night, I told my wife about my online “debate” and presented her with the terms of the law in question. She said that she would have no problem whatsoever supporting such a law — and she is the mother of our three children (one of whom was slightly more than a pound at birth and 2 1/ 2 months premature.) She is an extremely caring, compassionate person (much more so than myself). But…as she explained to me, she hates suffering and sees no reason to prolong it just for the sake of the “noble struggle.”
Applying this law to anyone under 18 obviously covers a lot of ground. I can envision a smart, sensitive 15 year old child, for example, looking up at me and saying “dad, I can’t do this anymore.” And if he was saying this to me repeatedly, and if there was no prospect for recovery, phrases such as “hold on, son, don’t give up” would start to sound rather hollow. The logical response would be “hold on for what”? On the other hand, it’s harder to imagine having that kind of a dialogue with a six year old or eight year old child. My ethics here are clearly situational rather than prescriptive. I guess that would want to know the circumstances, even though that may seem like a “cop-out.” .
Well, here’s my reason.
I believe in oaths, I believe the President and others who take an oath to serve are obligated to hold to that oath to serve, preserve, defend and protect.
I have a Framed Document I can reach from where I sit if I lean a little.
The Second Paragraph of the Oath says:
I will follow that method of treatment which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel:furthermore, I will not give to a woman an instrument to produce abortion.
I believe that a profession and a virtuous life are built on immutable things, such as the precious nature of human life. I believe that the Natural Law exists, and can be discovered by proper inquiry. One of the results of such an inquiry is to realize that through the ages, the value of the human life has only been compromised by social movements that put the state or the society in a higher priority than the individual.
Guess that part will always be with me. I can live with a just war, violent self defense, capital punishment. I just can’t practice medicine that includes homicide as a rational alternative. I hate to see death, for sure, and I favor adequate pain relief that may, in fact hasten death, but I am not prepared to include deadly medicine as part of what I do.
Jack Kevorkian was a monster, and he killed a lot of people who didn’t have a terminal illness.
The health of the mother, rape and incest excuses used as the way to open the door to abortion are rhetorical devices, an effective excuse for what usually is a regret or inconvenience. The 3rd trimester cure for health of the mother is delivery. Killing the baby of an alleged incest or rape is quite a commentary on executing the innocent. But then its just a bunch of cells, isn’t it?
A baby is a human, even if the product of a regrettable or inconvenient fertilization. I think I’ll continue to object to convenient excuses that facilitate what is often an act to eliminate an inconvenience. And follow that last part of the second paragraph of the Hippocratic Oath.
“
Greetings, William.
The operative word here, of course, is “unbearable.” (We can talk about “heroic” another time. For the record, I posit it be no more than a fallible individual trying to do the right thing anyway, so don’t sell yourself short, if you’ll forgive my offering of unsolicited advice.) Pain which is literally unbearable generally induces unconsciousness or shock — a potentially fatal medical condition in and of itself. Those who suffer this scenario have no need to apologize for the outcome and are naturally exempt from the discussion at hand. Figuratively unbearable pain is a far more subjective topic, and invites all sorts of “grey area” equivocation from all sorts of people. In John’s defense, I believe this is what prompted his ER physician’s knee-jerk, how-could-you-NOT-spit-in-Death’s-face-at-all-times response to your original comments. (If I’ve spoken out of turn, John, I do apologize to you, Sir.)
William, my issue with your well-spoken answer to my hypothetical question is that such a case still logically boils down to a decision where some ‘quality of life’ is determined to be ‘acceptable’ versus another quality which is not: “I can handle this much pain, but not THAT much,” or “My child can suffer this much disfunction for this amount of time, but not a moment longer.”
Essentially, the subject reduces to a determination of what level of personal discomfort renders the decision to embrace suicide acceptable. Perhaps for most that level is extremely high; the parameters of the decision are nevertheless the same. In this sense then, the argument follows that if a given person’s current life is not worth preserving in the face of x -circumstances, then that person’s former life was by definition not moreso; in fact a cruel commentator might argue that in the absence of certain attributes or achievements otherwise attained, that earlier life may have been less precious than it is currently. Either way, in such a case, “his less than perfectly courageous demise” might indeed “[invalidate] his entire life,” at least in one sense, if one allows that up until that point some measure(s) other than personal comfort played the main role(s) in determining the sense of his life’s worth. (Needless to say, those in pursuit of comfort or pain primarily have their justification to hand and thus no apology to make.)
This is not to say that people in pain can be expected to consistently make rational, logical decisions even MOST of the time. The term “Human History” is virtually synonymous with the phrase “Decisions Made in the Throes of Passion & Pain,” and those who are pushed beyond the ability to reason (not mention their loved ones) can easily be forgiven their so-called ‘weakness’.
Neither do I wish for anyone to suffer ANY level of pain at all, whether at the end of life or at any other point. I’m well aware of the suffering which can and does take place in many such cases, and I do empathize with your experience in the matter, Sir. But while politically-speaking I’m all for letting people do what they want with their own bodies as a general rule, I have a fundamental problem with the idea of tying the value even of my own life to some subjective measure of discomfort — a measure beyond which it somehow becomes “valueless,” i.e., “not worth preserving” — even if I alone am the one ultimately in charge of making that decision.
Finally, I would draw your attention to the thought that has gone into your responses and mine on this topic. At the end of it all (and please do forgive me for rambling on), given the volume of our writings here alone, considering the substance of your position in relation to my own, and regardless of whether your position as stated is more appropriate than mine to any given individual, the bottom line is simply this:
The idea that a CHILD is somehow capable of a competent decision regarding their own life or death in such a circumstance — the central topic of the original post — is utterly senseless. The idea of parents choosing on their child’s behalf is to me (need I say it?) simply abominable. That such a practice is legal anywhere in the entire world is to me unfathomable… though sadly NOT inconceivable.
Thank you for a lucidly presented position. I’m not sure that I entirely agree, but I understand.
I am not a very heroic person and I really can’t say how I’d respond to unbearable pain, acute suffering and the inevitability of death. It would be presumptuous of me to make a prediction, although I would certainly prefer to be heroic.
However, I’m not sure that you would want to use the term “life-denying ” in relation to someone’s choice to voluntarily end his life, –, unless you wanted to argue that his less the perfectly courageous demise invalidated his entire life.
The style and substance of our “going” is really a continuum, all the way from gormless coward to stoic, even heroic sufferer. What I chiefly object to is someone else passing judgment on me because I don’t measure up to his idea of moral rectitude.
And the answer to your hypothetical question above, i.e., “why now? is that “now’ may be far different than last week, or last month.. “Now,” you may be enduring unbearable pain, gasping for breath and given a prognosis of imminent death. The reasons for electing voluntary termination are often quite specific, you know — and very real. We’re not talking about ennui.
It is the choices we make which determine who we are, even if the eventual outcome is not appreciably affected.
To chose life in the face of the inevitable is heroic and life-affirming. To embrace death in the same situation is understandable, even deserving of sympathy in some cases. But it is quite the opposite of heroic, the very antithesis of life-affirming..
In a world with no moral compass or absolutes, individual choices may indeed mean nothing in terms of the final outcome of existence, but they are all we have to define who we truly are or were. For those who choose to opt themselves out my only question would be “Why now, and not yesterday, last week or last year? Why did you wait to embrace the end, knowing as you did that it was inevitable anyway? Why wait, and suffer even what you have to this point when you could have ended ALL of your suffering and pain so much sooner?”
For those who would choose to opt their children out, regardless of the circumstances, I have nothing polite to say whatsoever.
“You think you are wise, sir. You think you have the upper hand. But to me, you come across as nothing more than an egotistical bully.”
I do not agree with very much else, this man says, John. But with this, I agree completely.
Stop the name-calling, and get this website back to the science it used to cover so very well.
I see a lot of incurable pain in the some of the above comments.
There is a man that can help you.
His name is Jack K.
You continue to twist my position in an attempt to create someone who you can condemn as morally despicable. I am not the person you would like me to be.
I would like to remind you that my initial position was based upon my research into the law itself. It says nothing about killing for “convenience,” or because a life is “unacceptable” (whatever that means), or because someone is depressed or lacks “positive or redeeming thoughts.” These are categories and conditions that you have invented, perhaps because you see this law as some sort of slippery slope which will eventually lead to mass executions of “social undesirables.” ,
I was simply reacting to the specified conditions, which I shouldn’t have to remind you were “unbearable PHYSICAL pain’ (presumably not ameliorated by medication), terminal, incurable illness and near death. Plus agreement from the parents and physician.
If we stick to that set of criteria rather than creating all sorts of imaginary bogeymen and wild, hypothetical scenarios, e.g., “you seem a little depressed today, Johnny — would you like to die? Here, let us help you.” — then, I still see no virtue i(in any sense) in deliberately prolonging suffering — against the will of the patient, parents and physician — for some nebulous moral principle that you can’t even properly articulate.
I would kill people “because I find their lives unacceptable”????!!!! That is pure and utter garbage. I never said anything of the sort and I would never say anything of the sort. Don’t keep putting despicable words into my mouth to support your agenda. It is a low, childish and dishonest form of debate. I would not kill anyone. I would allow someone to chose death if they were terminally ill, suffering terribly and near death. If you are really opposing this, I think that YOU are the evil one.
That’s all I have to say for now….
I am not minimizing the difficulty of such decisions, but in my limited experience with regard to various euthanasia laws enacted in the U.S. and Canada (and experience with several friends who were terminal cancer patients and opted for euthanasia), I have generally felt that the process has been deliberate enough, and with sufficient safeguards in place, that nothing careless or rash was possible.
I would also agree that making euthanasia available to minors raises the stakes somewhat and calls for further caution, but it still seemed to me that the conditions specified, i.e., terminal illness, near death, unbearable pain, etc., together with the express consent of parents and physician, were theoretically sufficient. I am certainly willing to entertain reasonable concerns regarding this process.
However, I see nothing “compassionate” about prolonging suffering when there is no prospect of anything but more suffering. And I don’t agree that such laws devalue human life, just because they they take into account the quality of the life lived. I could argue just as convincingly that keeping someone alive in a vegetative state was a devaluation of human life. Nor am I moved by references to a “Marxist or socialist society,” because in the case of adults, at least, I’m not sure that the State should even have any say in the matter, beyond establishing some basic criteria and determining that the wishes of the patient were being followed.
And while this is an over-simplification, I believe that prohibitions against suicide and assisted dying have been part of the Western social fabric largely because of certain Christian and specifically Catholic teachings.. As a ex-Catholic, I remember being told that suicide was a sin against God and that those who committed suicide were condemned to hell. The same, presumably, would apply (or would have applied) to assisted dying. So government laws were to a large extent just a civil support for a religious belief. And people who don’t hold such religious beliefs,, including myself, find those sorts of restrictions unacceptable.
Our differences are , indeed irreconcilable becuase you would argue that life is not so important as compared to suffering, and i would argue the opposite.
With regards to children, you opening statement was offensive to my sensibilities, to a fault. Maybe it was presented as some kind of symbol of your position that children should be able to commite euthanasia.
My position is that if they commit to it because of pain or depression or loss of positive or redeeming thoughts about life. There is pain medication to relieve the pain, so if they commit it because of despair, then they need to be taught that despair is a form of cowardice and a failure to recognize that living a life is the best that we can do, regardless of the hope or the prospects.
You are, without a doubt, emblamatic of those who would see life as some “thing” that can be extinguished for preference or conviction or convenience. To cross over to such a thing is beyond the pale. You think your are rational, i think your ideas are corrupt and evil. Period. You would kill people because you find their lives unacceptable–my my, aren’t you the special person to decide that.
You think I am condemnatory, you have no idea how despicable your ideas are. But the Hemlock society and whomever would support you–that makes no difference to me. there are many evil and corrupt ideas that continue to sway the public and the society. Life is not so important to them or to you, even though you would claim otherwise.
You claim to have some rational approach to what is appropriate, that includes advanced directives that would delineate when someone should shut off the electricity. I don’t object to your effort to prevent inappropriate interventions when you or a loved one is on life support. Don’t mix me up on that.
Don’t you get it–this is about live children who have deadly illnesses, being given the ability to say–kill me. How horrific, and you support that?
If you don’t get the insanity of such a thing–you are incurable in your anxiety about death and disabling terminal illness. There are worse things, my friend, like the loss of morality and any sense of what is meaningful in life. It is not about what will make things go better, like eliminating someone who is dreadfully ill or disabled–is it?
You make a good many unwarranted assumptions — and you’re awfully good at name-calling.. I am in my mid-70s and I think a great deal about death. I also firmly believe that pain and suffering is not de facto a virtue when death in imminent. It may be — but it just as well may not be. The one who suffers should be the decision-maker and not some self-appointed moral authority hovering over him and telling him what’s good for him. Those who believe in the intrinsic value of pain and suffering are free to practice their beliefs in relation to themselves and those with whom they are in agreement. But to impose such beliefs on others is unspeakably arrogant. You think you are wise, sir. You think you have the upper hand. But to me, you come across as nothing more than an egotistical bully.
You also make numerous leaps in logic. You set up various straw men, e.g., “many who suffer are living a life that is more that suffering,” etc., etc., but obviously, a person who recognized that his suffering was somehow empowering to himself and/or others would not be requesting euthanasia. As for other people gathering inspiration from someone’s suffering, that’s all well and good, but if they are doing it at the expense of someone who wants to terminate his or her life, then they are merely indulging themselves and not thinking of the person who wishes to end his/her life.
You ignorantly and fatuously (see, I can throw insults around also) call me a nihilisit, when I am anything but that. I love life. I think life is precious. I am grateful for my life. I have lived a good life and I hope to live a bit longer. I think the world is a marvelous place. But I am not going to hold onto life, desperately clutching and grabbing, when the quality of my life deteriorates to the point where I am no long in control of my mental and physical faculties. In fact, my wife and I both have living wills which request that our lives be terminated under certain extreme conditions similar to the conditions in the law under discussion.
You flaunt your experience as a physician, but surely you must know that there are at least an equal number of physicians who hold an opposing point of view Your problem is that you are pushing some sort of vague moral agenda, the source of which you have not identified, and you demand that your position be accepted. In fact, at one point in your last post, you “condemned” [my] inclinations,” even though you apparently have very little idea of what my inclinations are. I had to chuckle at that — it was like some fundamentalist preacher condemning me to the lake of burning fire. And yes, I may offer “emptiness” at death, because I am not persuaded that there is anything after death, but when you say that I am “offer[ing] emptiness as an alternative to life,” that doesn’t even make any sense. . And by the way, I certainly do not pretend to know the meaning of life — but somehow, I think that you have the illusion (or more politely, conviction) that you do. And that may be the fundamental basis of our disagreement. If so, I suspect that our positions are irreconcilable.
Are you implying the only way to make a decision to have actually experienced the list you cite above? That does not make any sense to me. And why did you have to state, “Hard-line Roman Catholics aside”? The only reference was to Belgium’s leading Roman Catholics cleric. Why not state “Hard-line paediatricians aside”, since they too were mentioned in the same sentence?
Since when have minors even had the “the capacity of discernment”? How exactly can a paediatric psychiatrist or psychologist determine this from an interview?
These so-called ‘progressive’ laws may look compassionate on paper, but in actually most just serve to devalue human life. In any Marxist or socialist society the individual does not matter, only the state.
Indeed, if you reject the value of life, you are an empty vessel.
And don’t talk to me as though you have some special insight into suffering of those who have terminal illness. Your problem is that you can’t stand the reality of terminal illness or suffering and you would rather reject it with some gesture of rejection. Your inclinations are noted and condemned.
So you think some child or adolescent with a severe, life threatening, even terminal disease is better off dead, then I would suggest, given your state of mind with regards to these things, you have no better excuse for living, but i would reject that, wouldn’t you? Everyone is going to die.
Imagine that you, with whatever experience you have, could possible match my experience as a 42 year physician who has attended those who are sick to dying and dying to sick. And it’s not just a stick in your eye, you just don’t understand anything except your dislike of dying and the process of dying. Understand this, dying is a part of living, and suffering can be a part of living too. Many who suffer are living a life that is more than just suffering, they may, in fact, be living a life that is positive and contributes to their experience and those around.
Don’t assume that dying is all negative. It is a part of living. I will die someday and so will you and what we do when we are dying or about to die is still what we do. GET IT?
You are a bloviating negative nihilistic jackass, and I say that knowing you have no clue, and you would pretend to know the meaning of life? not likely my friend. All you offer is emptiness as an alternative to life, regardless of it’s difficulties and pain.
Brave words from a person who is without question NOT (a) suffering from an incurable, terminal illness, (b) unbearable physical pain and (c) near death — or a caretaker for someone who is experiencing (d) all of the above.. Or do you qualify? Please let me know. Sure, life is precious — but it ends in death regardless. Is it going to be an agonizing death or one that comes with a little dignity? And if you elect for the agony, bully for you. Go for it. Just don’t lay your bogus moral trip on me. I’m not impressed. .
As for a “vacuous approach to morality,” that’s a trite, meaningless phrase when it’s directed at someone who doesn’t subscribe to YOUR subjective definition of morality which, amazingly enough, is NOT shared by millions of people around the world. But I suppose that you are one of those religious zealots who knows what is best for everyone, because you are merely reflecting “God’s will.” Again, bully for you — but I have no use for your prescriptive blather. .Your words are hollow and your logic is faulty.
Name calling isn’t gonna get you a place at the table, Mr. Hysterical.
Let’s talk terminal illness or terrible pain. The euthanasia solution is nada, nothing the end. So what would your “philosophy” of appropriate responses to severe distress and pain and consequences result in, MR. SMART BOY, DEATH.
Are you the grim wreaper, mr? If you are consider what you offer——nothing but death.
i would assert that there are plenty of people who endure pain and suffering and contribute to the life and value of life that is pertinent to the families and the people that they love. i would suggest that the life is still precious and your alternative is a nothingness. But is is convenient and attractive to nihilism and a vacuous approach to morality. You missed the part where life is precious, and after that you were a lost soul, with a big mouth.
What a grossly irresponsible article — as is the Washington Post blog which it paraphrases. It turns out that child euthanasia is sanctioned in Belgium if the child has “terminal and incurable illness, [is] near death…suffering from unbearable physical pain and where parents and professionals agree to the choice.”
And some third-rate conservative hack turns this into an indictment of liberalism??? Hard-line Roman Catholics aside, it’s what most compassionate parents would WANT for their child.