Class Concensus on Euthenasia

[Pick]

Interestingly enough, my entire class today agreed that euthenasia should be legal, even if not necessarily ideal. I suppose this is somewhat relevant because I go to a Catholic school (Oregon) and Catholics are supposed to be so set against euthenasia. Still, some of the kids were strongly in favor of it being an option (like me) and some were simply acceptant of it being legal and understood that perspective.

Oddly enough, my teacher (who I am actually very fond of as a teacher) was the only one who is apparently against it. This isn't too surprising, since she's... well, Catholic enough to teach religion courses at a Catholic school (and have a Theology degree), but at the same time, having her being the only one of that generation and the only one against it in the class I thought was very interesting. Gives me hope.

Something she said though, her only comment I can recall even mildly disappoving, was musing as we left school today that, "She was disturbed how many of us were relativists" in terms of morality. I find that odd, since I think morality is relative.

Just thought I'd share.

[Queeb Salaron]

A point I always bring up in debates with pro-lifers concerning euthanasia:

If a person has the innate right to live, does he not also have the right to die?

[Pick]

A point I always bring up in debates with pro-lifers concerning euthanasia:

If a person has the innate right to live, does he not also have the right to die?

This has been asked, many times. Don't think it's a new question. My teacher's response was, in fact, "No."

[Junghalli]

Dude, I don't mean to sound callous here, but do you really need medical help help to kill yourself? Wouldn't it be relatively easy and painless to, say, jump of a high building or shoot yourself? I mean, I'm pretty sure I encounter at least several dozen opportunties for killing myself in the course of each day.
Well, I guess maybe if you're paralysed from the neck down or something then I could see it.

[Rye]

Drugs would be less messy, it's really thinking about the janitor. If you were a janitor, would you rather clean up someone who'd blown their brains out, jumped off a high building or gone quietly in their sleep from a lethal injection?

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Drugs would be less messy, it's really thinking about the janitor. If you were a janitor, would you rather clean up someone who'd blown their brains out, jumped off a high building or gone quietly in their sleep from a lethal injection?

Think of the janitors! Wouldn't somebody PLEASE think fo the janitors?!

[Firefox]

There's also the issue that some people really would need help to die. Take a quadraplegic, for example. Except for starvation, how would they carry out their own euthanasia?

[WyrdNyrd]

Well, two more reasons I can think of for wanting medical assistance for your own death, as opposed to more conventional suicide, are dignity and certainty.

There is, to my mind at least, a bit more dignity in a lethal injection, than in being a crumpled corpse on the pavement. And yes, let's think of the janitors. Here in SA, specifically in Cape Town, people like throwing themselves from the top of Table Mountain. This then requires that trained mountaineers must risk their own lives to retrieve the stinking corpse. Having it done in controlled circumstances is both more diginified, less messy, and less selfish.

The second reason, is certainty. "Do-it-yourself" suicide is not guaranteed to be quick, painless, or certain. Jumpers sometimes survive, only to be paralysed for life. Same thing, occasionally, for shooters. Plus, they need to find a gun. Taking pills is also sometimes not quick - Instead of just dieing, sometimes these people linger, in great pain, for days.

So, being "euthenased" by a qualified health care professional can be cleaner, more dignified, less painful, and more sure.

[Junghalli]

Passive euthanasia I guess would be maybe OK with me (i.e. giving a patient some death pill and saying take one of these and you die), but I draw the line at active euthanasia. I'm pretty sure it's a violation of the Hippocratic oath. And I'm totally against euthanasia without some kind of informed consent from the patient. If I fell from a five story building and ended up mangled and comatose I'd want to be damn sure they'd do everything concievably in their power to save me, and not say "let's just let him go peacefully", even if that comes from my family or somebody close to me. They aren't me, so frankly they're not qualified to decide whether or not I consider continued existence worth it.

[Firefox]

So even if you end up in a comatose, vegetative state, with no expectation of recovery to even a semblance of normalcy, you would want them to maintain life support?

[Junghalli]

As long as there was some hope. I suppose if it was absolutely certain I was never going to wake up and I was using up resources/money they desperately needed to treat people who could recover then I suppose on principle they could pull the plug. Either way, I'd never know after all. But that's not an option I'd want on the table the instant they brought me in off the street, no.

[Predator]

Dude, I don't mean to sound callous here, but do you really need medical help help to kill yourself? Wouldn't it be relatively easy and painless to, say, jump of a high building or shoot yourself? I mean, I'm pretty sure I encounter at least several dozen opportunties for killing myself in the course of each day.
Well, I guess maybe if you're paralysed from the neck down or something then I could see it.

In addition to what others have mentioned, there's also the issue of organs that could potentially be harvested if there is some controlled method of euthenasia. Organs will be useless after a 9 story drop, and shooting yourself in the head, depending on where you do it and whether you notify anyone, may mean they go bad before a doctor can harvest them.

That said, the method of euthenasia couldnt be some sort of drug that would enter the organs and cause damage to the new recipient :p I'm not too familiar with proposed euthenasia methods, but I'm sure something can be worked out whereby the organs are left in a useful state.

[Queeb Salaron]

This has been asked, many times. Don't think it's a new question. My teacher's response was, in fact, "No."

No no, it's not a new question at all.

And of course the pro-lifer answers "no." They're pro-life. The question is, what justification can you give for a stance against abortion, say, that you can't also give for Euthanasia?

The most classic example is this: I heard a pro-life lady argue that abortion is wrong because the life of the fetus does not belong to the mother -- or anyone but the fetus, for that matter. If this is true, and if our life is not to be ended by people who are not in direct contact with/control of that very life force, does it not also stand to reason that the only person who has any right at all to end that life is the person who IS in direct contact with/control of it?

[Uraniun235]

Passive euthanasia I guess would be maybe OK with me (i.e. giving a patient some death pill and saying take one of these and you die), but I draw the line at active euthanasia. I'm pretty sure it's a violation of the Hippocratic oath. And I'm totally against euthanasia without some kind of informed consent from the patient. If I fell from a five story building and ended up mangled and comatose I'd want to be damn sure they'd do everything concievably in their power to save me, and not say "let's just let him go peacefully", even if that comes from my family or somebody close to me. They aren't me, so frankly they're not qualified to decide whether or not I consider continued existence worth it.

Generally they try to keep people alive, contrary to your paranoid rambling. The exceptions are when you've signed a Do Not Resuscitate order and when you're a brain-dead vegetable that just sucks money and time from everyone around you. (except in Florida, where they keep you alive even then)

With regard to the Oregon Death With Dignity Act (which, IIRC is still under fire from those fucking shitheads in Washington DC), it requires both patient consent and consensus from two different doctors, and requires that you be in the throes of a terminal disease, so I don't think there's too much of a problem with unwanted euthanasia there.

With regard to your line about the Hippocratic Oath - life isn't just about having a heartbeat and an EEG reading, there's also this little thing called dignity, and it's an affront to human dignity that one should be forced to linger for months in intensive pain because the painkillers aren't effective enough anymore and because some shitheads thought that a "life" was more important than free will and human dignity.

I contend that to force a man to suffer in pain for months on end is a greater harm to him than to give him the means to end his life with dignity. No doctor should be compelled to do so against his will, but no patient should be denied his wish purely on the grounds that it is "immoral".

The question is, what justification can you give for a stance against abortion, say, that you can't also give for Euthanasia?

A fetus doesn't have a choice. A terminally suffering man does.

[Queeb Salaron]

The question is, what justification can you give for a stance against abortion, say, that you can't also give for Euthanasia?

A fetus doesn't have a choice. A terminally suffering man does.

And what difference does that make? The fact that the fetus doesn't have a choice is irrellevant: the fetus isn't the one making the choice. The mother DOES have a choice, like the terminally ill patient. The only reason the circumstances are different is because your argument implies that the fetus SHOULD have a very weighty say in the matter (i.e., if a fetus had a voice, it should be heard). The very same justification works for the terminally ill patient arguing for euthanasia, namely that he should have a say in whether or not his candle is snuffed.

[Uraniun235]

I'm not actually arguing against abortion, I'm just trying to throw out the possibility of an argument someone might use against abortion that couldn't also be applied to euthanasia.

[Jawawithagun]

A point I always bring up in debates with pro-lifers concerning euthanasia:

If a person has the innate right to live, does he not also have the right to die?

This has been asked, many times. Don't think it's a new question. My teacher's response was, in fact, "No."

Then the next question shall be, "Why not?"

[Pick]

A point I always bring up in debates with pro-lifers concerning euthanasia:

If a person has the innate right to live, does he not also have the right to die?

This has been asked, many times. Don't think it's a new question. My teacher's response was, in fact, "No."

Then the next question shall be, "Why not?"

And the response given to me was, "Because it is God's decision and God's decision alone."

My response, "Even assuming he exists, did God not give us free will, and hence assume that we would use it?"

Their response, "God did not give it to us with intent for it to be used against his wishes."

My response, "So it's God's idea of a joke."

[Uraniun235]

And the response given to me was, "Because it is God's decision and God's decision alone."

At that point I would have asked where in the Bible it says we should leave the sick and dying to linger in agony.

Or... wait, were they actually arguing that God should decide when a person should die? If that's the case one could have a real field day asking uncomfortable questions. Wouldn't that tend to mean that, by extension, all medical practices are "against God's will"? Although, that brings up the issue of just how strong God is if we can defeat his will so easily.

[wolveraptor]

let's say you're as dumb as a fetus due to some paralyzing injury. what happens then? does the legal right to kill you shift from yourself to someone smarter? how could someone ethically kill someone else who is too dumb (not in a bad sense) to realize what he/she is going through?

[Pick]

let's say you're as dumb as a fetus due to some paralyzing injury. what happens then? does the legal right to kill you shift from yourself to someone smarter? how could someone ethically kill someone else who is too dumb (not in a bad sense) to realize what he/she is going through?

The move to giving you more personal freedom in regards to your own life does not, I believe, translate to later yielding this, since it involves taking people's own freedoms away.

[mr friendly guy]

let's say you're as dumb as a fetus due to some paralyzing injury. what happens then? does the legal right to kill you shift from yourself to someone smarter? how could someone ethically kill someone else who is too dumb (not in a bad sense) to realize what he/she is going through?

If you are essentially a vegetable with no hope of recovery and requiring life support (eg medical personel feeding you through drips) to keep you alive, the Doctors can simply switch off the life support.

Ethically this isn't euthanisia, since this is witholding treatment and letting "nature take its course", as opposed to actively helping someone die.

I am not sure about that case in the US, but as far I know, switching life support off is not considered the same as euthanasia. Doctors here are allowed to make such decisions (although they have been legally challenged), but euthanasia itself is another can of fish and they can face criminal charges.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Ethically this isn't euthanisia, since this is witholding treatment and letting "nature take its course", as opposed to actively helping someone die.

I remember my ethics book classified "removal of treatment, letting nature take its course," as passive euthanasia.

[Molyneux]

Poor, poor Doctor Kevorkian...when he was first in the news, I think I was the only person I knew who actually thought that he shouldn't be put in jail.