Assisted Suicide Advocates Don't Really Want Meaningful "Safeguards"
Kathryn Tucker, the lawyer for the euphemistically named Compassion and Choices, who won the trial court ruling establishing a right to assisted suicide in Oregon (and I contend, much more) has shown a bit of the real agenda behind the movement. In reacting to the victory, she suggested that the state would look to Oregon for guidance on death regulations, but would have to be less stringent. From the story:
Attorney Kathryn Tucker--who brought the case for right to die groups--expects Montana to look to Oregon and Washington for guidance. But she says Montana will have more freedom. Kathryn Tucker: "Let's just take the example of the waiting period. In Oregon there's a minimum 15-day waiting period. That provision very possibly would not survive constitutional scrutiny because it would be unduly burdensome."Wow. Unduly burdensome to wait two whole weeks for suicide: Culture of death? What culture of death? It is all in my paranoid imagination.
Labels: Assisted Suicide. Montana. Culture of Death. Kathryn Tucker. Compassion and Choices.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 1:12 PM
13 Comments
13 Comments:
Her concern could be construed to be that anyone suffering to such an extent that it would be cruel to make them suffer for two weeks more, and no doubt that's her professed rationale, but in facts that's two weeks of "resources" and "technology" being "wasted."
The attorney appointed by the judge to represent my mother in the "guardianship" hearing asked in her closing for the judge (who had refused, on the grounds that "we have someone in a coma and this has to be decided quickly" (accepting the hospital's claim of coma as fact, though the hospital never, ever told me that she was in one, and she wasn't) to grant the adjournment my attorney requested in order to be able to gather witnesses, etc., which certainly was necessary after the tightly organized, slick, well-rehearsed, well-practiced dog and pony show in a type of proceeding it had done many times before and had had far more time to prepare its case than we had had since being ambushed by the petition) to delay decision for a month, ostensibly so that there would be time to see whether my mother's condition improved. The judge rendered his decision, rather suddenly, after two weeks, during which time, as thereafter, the hospital refused to do what she needed in order to have a chance to recover, saying instead that "we have to wait for the judge's decision." That reminds me of the agenda underlying the ostensibly "merciful" intention of "not wanting to force them to wait two weeks."
(And, of course, it's two weeks during which the person might change his or her mind and decide that s/he wishes to continue to live -- the result of which decision would be "more cost.")
If some people are less valuable, so they're encouraged to suicide so that the resources they're wasting are available to others who are somehow more valuable, at what point does the value system actually draw a line? Where do we decide that someone is worth saving? Why should an elitist doctor be allowed to have medication to let him live six more months in the hopes of a cure for whatever's killing him, but not a grandma who wants to see her second grandbaby be born?
I recently had the pleasure of re-watching some Star Trek: Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. It's amazing how the show has been altered to fit our feelings about assisted suicide!
In TOS, Vulcans didn't even *have* a word for "suicide" because they thought it was an irrational, highly illogical desire.
In TNG, there were the two "euthanasia" episodes I love - in one, Deanna Troi's mother falls for a man whose culture demands he die at 62, and she fights against it, likening the mandatory suicide age to a terrible custom among her people where animals were encaged in ugly hats - cruel, selfish, and stupid. In the other, Lt. Worf ends up with a broken back and asks Riker to kill him because he's ashamed of himself, being unable to move, and any help he gets will have him lurching around the ship like a monster. Riker tells him, oh no, by your culture your 9-year-old *son* is supposed to kill you. You make *him* do it and think very hard and long about what you're asking. So Worf decides he can't do that to his son, and decides to keep on living. Naturally there's a happy ending where he's not crippled at the end, because it's Star Trek, but still, it's the sentiment.
And then I had the displeasure of seeing an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, where suddenly somehow the logical Vulcans have a tradition of euthanasia in the cases of advanced age, and it's considered *Logical!*
It's like everything in our society, even the stories we enjoy for fun and entertainment, have shifted gears. No longer are people encouraged to live because they matter, even if they're going through hard times, even if they're feeling useless. Now it's "logical" to give up on life if you feel any way like a burden. It's horrid that we've made such a mess out of our value system!
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T.E. I really enjoyed reading your comment. It looks as if we're going to make a mess out of space, too, if we live long enough to colonize it, as we started planning to do before this death culture stuff seems to have gained an overt foothold here. Interesting how the characters' "cultures" prescribe death, even on Star Trek, just as the "death culture" does on this side of the TV screen.
Lanthe -
I know! We went from embracing life as something precious (TOS and TNG) to thinking of life as something we have the right to toss away (Voyager). I always felt that if we ever reached the stars, it would be a sign of personal advancement and intellectual growth, but how can any society that throws people away be grown or advanced?
Because it's all about "compassion" and "choices," don't you know? (What kind of a name is that for an organization, anyway?) Actually society did used to throw people away, not on purpose, but because it had no way to keep the elderly and the disabled alive. Now that it does, it's not honoring its own technical ability by treating them humanely; it's lying through its teeth and saying that to be "utilitarian" is to be "compassionate" and that those it throws away "choose" for that to happen to them. When is it going to get to the point when they start saying the aborted foetus "chooses" to be aborted? By the way, that's why Singer's utilitarianism and concern for animal rights doesn't hold up -- but just because he's wrong, that doesn't mean the concept of animal rights and showing non-human animals real compassion is a threat to humanity. Truly humane people are just able to defend the rights of non-human animals better than Singer is. The baby shouldn't be thrown out with the bathwater. The same amoral focus on technology and utilitarianism that throws away our elderly and disabled is what has ratified the use of animals in scientific and medical experimentation -- and it's wrong, as we can see. Your point is sound; a society that throws people away can be no more grown or advanced than can one that experiments on non-human animals. Those who favor animal experimentation say that it is necessary because the information it yields can be extrapolated to apply to humans, and spare humans the suffering the experimentation causes the animas, and do not feel that moral accountability needs to be part of it beyond "if it's to help humans it's justified and humans matter more than non-human animals do." Yet when we see that we are treating humans, now, with the same inhumanity with which we have treated and continue to treat laboratory animals, which is what has come out of the scientific and technological advances and utilitarianism that involved animal experimentation and all its cruelty and all the suffering we have caused thereby, human exceptionalism doesn't see the connection. People talk about the animals "being treated humanely now," which is like saying that "euthanasia" is "compassionate." Non-human animals have a right not to be experimented upon, just as humans have a right not to be victimized by the death culture that humans have created, and that death culture grew out of animal experimentation. We treat our own badly because we feel entitled to treat other animals badly. We can reach the stars all we want, but we're going to make just as much of a mess there as we have here if we don't achieve real personal advancement and intellectual growth by being humane enough not to experiment on other animals.
Or maybe society did used to throw people away on purpose then, too, and was being utilitarian then, too, and we've just developed another way to do it, hand in hand with our "technological advancement" -- which "advanced" at the same time we were experimenting on animals, all of which continues as we let "Compassionate Choices" run amok because we want them to.
Did anyone happen to see the link that was put up by someone to something they'd written -- it has DamnYankee in it -- I've looked and looked through the thread and can't find it again; I'm going to keep looking; does anyone happen to have written it down and have it handy?
p.s. I tried googling DamnYankee but couldn't find it that way either.
Lanthe -
I'm not sure I should go into detail because this post isn't about animal experimentation, but you've kind of hit a nerve. I don't know if you believe what I do, but I belive animals have a soul (says so in the Bible) and they belong to God, not us. We're allowed to use them humanely, including animal experimentation, which makes me uncomfortable but which I have to acknowledge is a brutal necessity (another reason I'm looking forward to the Second Coming - no more need for animal death!), and we're allowed to eat them, but ultimately we have to remember that they don't belong to us, and God will be watching how we treat His pets.
When I say you struck a nerve I mean that I am VERY peeved with people in the media of late (Vick and his poor bulldogs comes readily to mind), and I've just finished reading Dean Koontz's novel THE DARKEST EVENING OF THE YEAR, which talks about some of the horrors visited on animals by thoughtless people. So, while I believe eating meat is ethical and animal experimentation done in the most human way possible is ethical, I believe most people don't appreciate God's pets and mistreat them. And I feel good reading what you write because it's nice to know SOMEONE out there agrees with me that animals aren't for abuse or simple pleasure. We're supposed to take good care of them.
Of course, personally, that's what I feel makes us exceptional. That we *know* that other species are there to be cared for and used properly, and that they should be treated well because we know better.
But here's something that bugs me - how can we as a species feel empathy for animals and anger towards those who abuse them and misuse them and yet feel nothing towards those who push euthanasia on our most vulnerable people? It's sick!
T.E. Are there people who feel empathy for animals and anger towards those who abuse them and yet feel nothing toward people who push euthanasia on our most vulnerable people? I don't know any. Who are they? It's not our whole species that even cares about them. I don't know that it's a good idea to lose energy by being angry toward either group -- it's energy better converted into just fighting to stop them.
Of course animals have a soul. I didn't know that it says in the Bible that they do -- and I'm not a Bible enthusiast -- where does it say it? Who "allows" us to use them humanely, eat them, etc.? I don't believe it's a necessity, and I don't believe in the Second Coming, either. I have to tell you, I think religion really messes up people's minds and that it and human exceptionalism are rationalizations for doing what we want to do and believing that we are "special" that's all wound up with religion having messed people up in the first place. I have and see no need for religion, and I feel lucky to be able to operate just on the basis of what I know empirically; I'm happy enough without it and do fine spiritually. The Bible, religion, God, these are things and concepts man created. I don't believe in even speculating on whatever God is, and find the civilizations Christianity, which I do not care for, destroyed far more sane and far more exemplary and expressive of the best mankind can be. Don't start me on the subject of Jesus Christ, and you won't like hearing that when I see a movie of the Christians thrown into the arena, I cheer for the lions -- not because of the animal rights stuff, but because I despise Christianity and admire the lions, which are better specimens of what they are than the Christians were of humans, as humans had proven before they came along that humans can be. It might be better not to talk to me about religion; I don't want to hurt your feelings. I find what you're saying about being "allowed" to experiment on animals, eat them, etc., "brutal necessity," the Bible "saying so," God watching, etc. consistent brainwashing, and the stuff about "human exceptionalism" totally unnecessary and basically a logically unsound rationalization,and the whole thing an example of how much damage Christianity does.
There are plenty of people who agree that animals aren't for abuse or simple pleasure, and they respect them more than to patronize them by saying we're "supposed" to "take good care of them." Unfortunately, "human exceptionalism" has confused Singer and utilitarianism with all those who realize that we have no right to do to animals what they would not do to other animals, including us.
(Sorry; didn't mean to sound harsh; yours hit a nerve with me, too.)
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