Court Imposed Assisted Suicide Legalization in Montana
I wish I could say I was surprised, but judges have decided they get to decide all of our social issues today. A Montana trial court judge has legalized assisted suicide in Montana. From the story.
A Montana judge has issued a ruling saying residents of the state have the right to doctor-assisted suicide. The ruling issued late Friday by state District Court Judge Dorothy McCarter makes Montana the third state in which doctor-assisted suicide is legal.So it is a constitutional right to have a doctor help poison you to death if you have a terminal illness. I assume there will be an appeal. But why have legislatures when we have judges to make these crucial decisions for us and spare us the democratic debate? The USA is quickly becoming a not very free country.
The judge said Saturday she ruled in a lawsuit filed by a terminally ill Billings man, four physicians and a nonprofit patients rights group, Compassion & Choices. McCarter's ruling holds that mentally competent, terminally ill Montanans have a right to obtain medications that can be self-administered to bring about a peaceful death if they find their suffering to be unbearable. The ruling also says physicians can prescribe such medication without fear of criminal prosecution.
Update: Here is a more detailed story by the AP:
"The Montana constitutional rights of individual privacy and human dignity, taken together, encompass the right of a competent terminally (ill) patient to die with dignity," McCarter said in the ruling.So the court takes a propaganda buzz term "death with dignity," and turns it into a constitutional right to suicide because the Montana Constitution uses the word dignity. Unbelievable, but this is what judges are becoming. It is, after all, where the power lies.
So, why not anyone who wants to die? I mean, how can one limit the rights to privacy and dignity to the dying? Believe me, it is coming.
Labels: Assisted Suicide. Montana. Court Imposed Assisted Suicide Legalization
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 5:15 PM
49 Comments
49 Comments:
Wesley, what the bleep is wrong with some people in this country? Some people are so obsessed with death. Let's just kill all the unborn babies and living people we can.
SCOTUS ruled a while back that there's no constitutional right to assisted suicide, so I'm guessing this judge ruled on the state constitution or laws.
The story doesn't have a lot of detail. Is this something that the Montana legislature could rectify?
It's based on the State Constitutional right to privacy. I just added an update with more details.
But if the ruling sticks, a big if, the only way to change it would be to amend the constitution. The state can't pass unconstitutional laws.
Of course, the idea that it is really unconstitutional is so bogus as to boggle the mind. But this is what we are becoming.
Can a state pass a law that is in conflict with the U.S. Constitution?
SHS: When you say that the only way to change it would be to amend the constitution, and that the only way to change it would be to amend the constitution, do you mean the state constitution, or the U.S. constitution?
I don't think that this is what we are becoming, or that this is what's coming; I think it's what we've become, and what is already here.
I also think that judges are running the show now because there is too much emphasis on the U.S. Supreme court, which societal attitudes have allowed and accepted, again showing lack of self-reliance and too much "let them decide," which is analogous to "let the bioethicists decide." And it has trickled down throughout our attitude toward our entire judiciary, and our entire judiciary's attitude toward itself. It's too much WORK to do things via legislation, and hence, "Let THEM decide." Judges are people who want to be in positions of authority in the first place, and that, combined with the laziness of members of society, has yielded this.
I'm also sick and tired of hearing lawyers say, "The judge won't like it..."
Wait, did I just hear Wesley say that the idea that it's unconstitutional is bogus? Hurray! Your legal training that the constitution means whatever the court says it means, however bizarre and obviously invented, is wearing off and the common sense is showing through. :-)
More seriously, I gather you think there are good prospects of its being overturned at a higher state court level in Montana?
The Supreme Court has held that there is no right to assisted suicide under the UNITED STATES Constitution. That does not mean that the state of Montana cannot provide such a right for its citizens. Remember, no person is being DEPRIVED of rights in Montana, therefore the Fourteenth Amendment doesn't apply. Of course I disagree with Wesley's argument that assisted suicide infringes on the rights either of society or individual persons.
Unfortunately, the de facto effect of its existence does.
Lydia: I am not optimistic. This is all so poilitical.
Other states have ruled on similar privacy clauses against a constitutional right to assisted suicide. Montana's Supreme Court had a lot of dicta in a case about eight years ago that would support the ruling.
But I am utterly depressed as a lawyer what the courts have become, deciding crucial social issues as if democracy doesn't matter. That is very bad for freedom because, at the very least, it will drive people to the conclusion that they have no stake in their own government.
I think it leads not only to anyone who wants to die for any reason being able to do it, but to those who want someone else to die to be able to accomplish that.
A point missing in this debate. The judge himself is most likely emboldened by the recent election. The next round of judges are more apt to fall into the same category as this judge. Do you think a McCain/Palin election would have made the judge so bold??
lanthe, why should you be concerned that a person might be able to commit suicide for any reason they want? Should there only be "approved reasons" for committing suicide? What, exactly, are you driving at? Both you and Wesley seem to think that "democracy" is an issue in the debate. I should point out that the United States is not a "democracy," but a constitutional republic. Majority rule is not the be-all and end-all of American jurisprudence. Wesley, a lawyer, is surely aware of this.
HistoryWriter: If we're not a democracy, I don't know what is. Your argument is an example of how tyranny works -- first, peremptorily focusing on terminology and starting to call things other than what they are with the objective of removing rights by changing the meaning of the words; by the same logic, Republicans wouldn't be considered to stand in favor of democracy and Democrats; trying to put those who are standing for something on the defensive via word games is an element of "driving at" something, which is what you, not we, are doing. Being a constitutional republic and being a democracy are not mutually exclusive, and the be-all and end-all of jurisprudence is to preserve good social order, not to debate how many angels can sit on the head of a pin in the course of pushing and as a means to push a particular agenda. At least, that's what I thought I was learning in law school. "Why should you care?" is a hallmark of the apathy that is destructive to life. If someone wants, in fact, to commit suicide, for whatever reason, it can be illegal, but the law can't stop them if they do it without anyone else's participation and give no indication that they are going to do it and if they provide no one with any opportunity to stop them, and the law can't hold them directly accountable after they've done it. But in order to protect society, which is the purpose of law (and jurisprudence), the law forbids, and exists in order to prevent as far as it can, anyone killing anyone; if the law permits anyone to help anyone else kill themselves, it is permitting killing, and the effects are far-reaching, and one of them is that one day any of us, including you, HistoryWriter, might be disabled, in a hospital on life support, might even have signed a "living will" that you, once you are in a situation whose exact circumstances no document is capable of predicting, do not wish to be "followed," and be denied treatment, and have the plug pulled on you for utilitarian reasons when you are aware but unable to defend yourself. That danger outweighs the "right to die" of those who "want" to, and want others to be able to kill them with impunity (and for the killing their "helpers" do to be decriminalized) for the same reason that no one has the right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre.
The word "would" should follow "Democrats" in my previous post. I note also that the question "Why should you be concerned?" is a hallmark of not only apathy, which is destructive to life, but "driving at something," which is what both HistoryWriter and the death culture are doing. It isn't objective, either.
Of course, History Writer. But the court has usurped the democratic process by conflating policy with constitutional principles--all too common in this day of judicial legislatures.
Courts are supposed to try NOT to make constitutional pronouncements.
And law schools teach that way now. And lawyers shake in their shoes about "Ooh, Judge so-and-so won't like it" instead of focusing on what the job of the judge and of the Court is, and what their own job is. Which doesn't help clients, or society as a whole.
Defining the meanings of terms is a precursor of tyranny? No, I rather think that careless use of terms is the stuff on which propagandists feed. Concerning what you thought you were learning in law school, I suppose it all depends on which law school you went to, and when. When I attended NYU Law School in the early 1960s we learned, among other things, the benefit of clarity of language. Admittedly that’s a concept that seems to have been abandoned by many educational institutions since; nevertheless writing clearly, like defining one’s terms at the outset, has little to do with tyranny and much to do with drafting legislation sufficiently unambiguous to withstand judicial scrutiny. I would say that the be-all and end all of LAW is preserve good social order, while the be-all and end-all of jurisprudence is to guarantee full employment to university professors. As for democracies and constitutional republics being mutually exclusive, you said that, not I. I simply pointed out that America (thankfully) is not given to mob rule except, perhaps, during elections and Super Bowl Sundays.
I asked “Why should you care” because I am usually too polite to come right out and ask something like “what the [deleted] business is it of yours?” The constitution of Montana appears to contain language that, according to a judge’s review, makes assisted suicide lawful. If, indeed, that’s what the people of Montana want, then I strongly suggest that those who disagree and fear for their lives in one of your imagined scenarios, move elsewhere.
For your information I have personally drafted a living will that permits my administrator to move me, in the event that any of its provisions are challenged by persons given to interfere in other people’s business, to the nearest jurisdiction in which its provisions will be honored --- even if such movement is likely to shorten my remaining life. Since the provisions of my living will take effect only when I am determined to be in a persistent vegetative state, it seems unlikely that I’ll be lying there worrying about the outcome and “unable to defend myself.” Even less likely is the possibility that I’ll “die a painful death” from starvation and dehydration (as the people at LifeNews are wont to say). Unconscious people don’t feel pain, as anyone who’s ever been under general anesthesia will attest.
Wesley, I take it you're referring to the Montana Court, and not the USSC. It seems to me that the judge in Montana is simply inviting the legislature and the public to either tighten up their constitution's language or else legislate assisted suicide and be done with it. "Legislating from the bench" is the term used by conservatives when judicial opinions go against them. It's like the difference between "propaganda" (theirs) and "information" (ours).
Well, I went to law school at Cardozo in the 1980s, some years after graduate training in the 1970s at Columbia in which I learned to read, write, and think, and I did not say that democracy and constitutional republic are mutually exclusive; in fact, I said that they are not. Jurisprudence may have become what you termed it, but in fact it is properly a part of the law. I'm not at all surprised that you have drafted a living will, and that it contains the provision you describes, or that you have failed to consider that you might be "determined" to be in a "persistent vegetative state" and "unconscious" when in fact you are not. But having seen that situation occur, and someone who had answered a third party clearly by specified gestures on request that they wished to continue living on a ventilator, which was reported to appellate court in affidavit, and on whose face I'd seen fear an hour before they were disconnected from the ventilator, of which I'd informed the doctor carrying out the order of a hospital which had declared the person brain dead in affidavit before appellate court three weeks prior and then submitted affidavit a week after that saying that no they were not, and on whose face yet another third party said that they saw awareness as last rites were done, being removed from a ventilator against their current wishes, and suffocate to death, I am acutely aware of the danger posed by "living wills" -- danger of which their proponents seem not to have considered. That danger can manifest as the result of signing a "living will" not only for anyone who is willing to take the risk of having what I just described happen to them, but also for those who do not realize that such a risk exists and would not be willing to take it if they did realize it. Legalizing "assisted suicide" opens the same Pandora's Box.
I trust that the content of the above survives the couple of typos I just spotted. The right to live supercedes the right to die, and residents of Montana should not have to "move elsewhere" because of a judicial decision that favors the wishes of a small minority, and if they did, not only would they have been inconvenienced, but also, the negative consequences to the state's economy (the silver lining there would be that the tax base might not be able to support the judiciary in question), which is part of the good social order the law exists to protect, would be significant. Moreover, not only where are they supposed to go, as the tyranny of the death culture spreads from one state to another, but telling them that if they don't like it, it is "suggested" that they move is tyrannical in itself, and a further indication of what the death culture is all about. By the way, hospitals in this city, in New York State, have taken to disconnecting from ventilators, and thus ending the lives of, people who want to continue to live, even on a ventilator, and who do not even have "living wills." That's why all this "bioethics," "trusting the medical profession," "utilitarian," "end-of-life," "death with dignity," "living will," "right to die," and "assisted suicide" stuff is as dangerous as it is. Once the door to death is opened, death walks in, invited and welcomed or not.
Or is the "right to die" supposed to supersede the right and preference to live? Are enough people in Montana supposed to want to be able to die via assisted suicide so that if they were Montana's entire population, everyone else having followed the "polite suggestion" to "go elsewhere," the state of Montana could remain viable? If the ruling truly is correct in terms of human rights, what happens when other states "see the light" in that regard? Then where do those who have been told, tyrannically and with asterisks implied but not spoken, "If you don't like it, move," go? Moreover, what justifies, and who pays for, their moving expenses and other costs and losses incurred?
Legislating from the bench is legislating from the bench, plain and simple. The Montana court has in fact invited its state's public and legislature to ratify assisted suicide by legislation as it has just done itself from the bench, and its own language, not the state's constitution, is what needs tightening. "Die with dignity" has become a catch phrase, a shibboleth, and propaganda, just as "living will" has, and, similarly, fails to provide precise and sufficient information. But then, I do remember having been asked repeatedly by someone who held a 1960s NYU B.A. and Harvard J.D. and who had clerked for a federal judge and been considered for a federal judgeship himself why, oh why, a sentence is not a sentence unless it contains a verb, and that question reflects the same clueless passivity that asks how something claimed as an individual right that in fact has life-and-death ramifications for the rest of society would be of concern to anyone else. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that life is action and passion; I agree; it's necessary and proper to fight for life, not for death.
Hmmm, Oliver Wendell Holmes. A good Unitarian, as am I. He may have written that "life is action and passion", but didn't he also say in support of involuntary eugenic sterilization: "Three generations of morons is enough"? (Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200)
lanthe wrote: "But having seen that situation [misjudgment as to one's being in a persistent vegetative state]occur, and someone who had answered a third party clearly by specified gestures on request that they wished to continue living on a ventilator, which was reported to appellate court in affidavit, and on whose face I'd seen fear an hour before they were disconnected from the ventilator, of which I'd informed the doctor carrying out the order of a hospital which had declared the person brain dead in affidavit before appellate court three weeks prior and then submitted affidavit a week after that saying that no they were not, and on whose face yet another third party said that they saw awareness as last rites were done, being removed from a ventilator against their current wishes, and suffocate to death, I am acutely aware of the danger posed by "living wills" -- danger of which their proponents seem not to have considered."
The power of human imagination is awesome. People even imagined that Terri Schiavo was cognitive and responsive, when her autopsy clearly indicated that her brain had deteriorated beyond the point at which cognizant response was possible. What you imagined to be "fear" may have been no more than an involuntary grimace, or the result, as Scrooge might have said of Marley's apparition, of "an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato..."
Humor aside, the possibility of such an error being made, given the sophistication of today's medical technology, is so insignificant as to be well within the realm of acceptable risk. One stands a far better chance of being hit by a car on the way to the grocery store.
History Writer: Right you are about Holmes. In my view he goes down with Taney as a disgrace to the legal profession. One claimed that black human beings were not persons and the other allowed an innocent woman to be involuntarily sterilized, leading to tens of thousands more. Both thus supported evil tyranny.
A final comment. lanthe asks: "...is the 'right to die' supposed to supersede the right and preference to live?"
The answer is that the "right to die" does NOT supersede the preference to live. Nor does the "right to live" supersede the preference to die. Why not stop trying to save people from themselves, and simply leave them to the consequences of their choices. You have yet to demonstrate how someone's willing departure from this vale of tears has an adverse effect upon you personally or upon society as a whole.
I understand your point, since Taney concurred with Story in the Amistad decision as well as deciding against Dred Scott. But remember the context. It's not fair to judge either Taney or Holmes in light of contemporary values. Would you denigrate Washington and Jefferson because they happened to be slaveholders, or because the U.S. Constitution limited suffrage to males until passage of the 19th Amendment? I think not.
HistoryWriter: Well, I'm not Unitarian, or even interested in religion, and I agree with Wesley that allowing an innocent woman to be involuntarily sterilized led to tens of thousands more such instances. But I do like what Holmes said about what life is. As for imagination, you don't know the facts of the situation, and you are in fact imagining that I'm imagining. If you want to place your faith in technology and in the doctors in the situation I'm talking about (who, not the technology, were making the "determinations," and who had declared the person "brain-dead beyond all medical certainty" in affidavit to the appellate court before tests even had been done, and then had to reverse themselves a week later in an affidavit that said it was similarly certain that infection was not present, and then right after that told me that it might be infection and arranged for tests for infection, and then declared that it was cancer, told me that patients in her condition had gone home before, and then, upon my asking how she could have been in a hospital for nine months with cancer spreading and the hospital hadn't known it, that the cancer had been discovered nine months before, when it was a single nodule, and it "hadn't been important" to tell us about it, as if she and her health care proxy hadn't had the right to know (this is the same hospital whose policy was constantly to have doctors say to a third party in the patient's hearing that they might die that night "because they have a right to know," though the prediction was never correct, and every prognosis the hospital had made always has turned out the opposite at every step of the way, and then there was the time the head ethics doctor insisted, after poring over her chart for half an hour, that all her organs were failing and she was dying imminently, and none was, or ever did, and she still wasn't dying for the next nine months, and only did because the hospital disconnected her ventilator against her will, which it's done to a number of other people who didn't have "living wills") -- a situation the facts of which, again, you do not know -- well, to tell you the truth, I find Holmes' comment apt, telescoped down to one generation, which we've got now. You don't know what I (and others) saw, you don't know the person, you don't know the situation, and you are in fact merely speculating, and imagining, that I was imagining. Imagination does not even happen to be a talents I possess. How you can be sure that one stands a far better chance of being hit by a car on the way to the grocery store than ending up in the situation I've described, I don't know; I can tell you that just in this city, I've heard in the last few months from a number of people to whom it has happened, despite their wish to continue to live, at that and at other hospitals here, within the last few years, and while I do keep up with the news, I haven't heard of anyone around here being hit by a car on the way to the grocery store. It's not merely error when things like what I've described happen; it's deliberate decision, and sheer arrogance. I was told by a hospital administrator that "everyone at the hospital" was very upset about this patient's situation, and on her side, realizing, understanding, and supportive of her desire and right to live, "but just a few people here are dead set on this." You wouldn't want to hear about what else the hospital did to her, either. There's nothing remotely humorous about it. The danger of people placing faith in the medical system and the "living will" shibboleth as you do is the way it feeds the arrogance of that system and of doctors, and the effects it has on others. If you want to take the risk, I wouldn't object if the your choice didn't endanger others, but the truth is that it does.
Sorry History Writer: We have to give slack to people for the times in which they live. But some actions are beyond the pale. Hence, I revere Lincoln even though he was a racist because he grew into a better understanding of human equality and always opposed slavery. His opposition was based on constitutionalism, an altogether honorable approach, although I hope I would have been an Abolitionist.
On the other hand, I condemn Jefferson because he knew slavery was wrong but cared more about his life's luxury then to not participate, to the point that his slaves except the Hemmings were sold South to pay his debts post mortem.
Taney couldn't even abide free blacks. Dred Scott was intended to settle the slavery issue once and for all and to prevent African-Americans from ever having any civil rights, as overreaching as some of our more modern cases intended to take social issues out of the democratic realm. Lincoln knew that if Taney was in office when the war ended, the Emancipation would be toast, which was one reason why he pushed the 13th Amendment (although Taney died before war's end). Dred Scott was so odious and overreaching as to be beyond excuse.
No excuse for Holmes, either. None.
Correction; I've heard from a number of people to whose loved ones it's happened, obviously. This is just one city in New York State. SHS has mentioned a case he handled involving the same issue -- in California? I just read online of the same things going on in Massachusetts. There was the young man in Texas injured in a motorcycle accident who was declared brain-dead and woke up just as his organs were about to be harvested for donation, and it turned out he had heard everything that was going on. SHS has mentioned other analogous instances. Recently there was the case of the young boy in a hospital in Washington whose parents opposed his being taken off life support because it was against their religion, and the hospital put them through a court proceeding. Young people, as well as the elderly, who along with the disabled are particularly vulnerable, pay the price of the "disconnection from life support" and "living will" syndrome, whether they have "living wills" or not. The Hastings Institute put out a report a few years ago that concluded that living wills are not a good idea, particularly since technology is advancing and changing as quickly as it is; the "right to life" official of the local Catholic diocese, who has been quoted extensively in the local press as a proponent of "living wills" and lives and breathes the "end-of-life" world, told me, nonetheless, that the real purpose and reason behind "living wills" is to save costs by getting rid of the elderly, the disabled, and whoever else is declared "unviable." I've commented briefly above in this section of SHS about the history of "living wills." I've known of an estates and trusts attorney haranguing an elderly client who did not want a "living will" or to be DNR to sign one for decades, and eventually slipping fraudulent documents by her when she was in hospital, and of others being, to say the least, manipulative concerning documents, including "living wills," when "representing" the elderly. But they've become an accepted institution because, as the saying goes, there's one born every minute.
Yes, HistoryWriter, the right to live does supersede the preference to die, and the reason it does is that ratifying the preference to die changes the atmosphere in a way that makes it more difficult for those who have a right to live, and prefer to live, to have their wishes respected when they are in a vulnerable position. Not everyone considers life a "vale of tears"; those of us with a positive attitude certainly don't, and I personally, having been fortunate enough to have survived several times when accident, injury, and physical illness nearly removed me from life, know how very thin the line between life and death is and how important it is to stay on this side of it. I'm not trying to save others from themselves, and I'm certainly not trying to save you from yourself, but the rest of us need to be saved from the "vale of tears" brigade, and I know what it is to try to save someone who wants to live from others who want that person (not themselves) to die, and that in making that attempt I was doing the right thing, and I know that every time someone signs a "living will," accedes to the arrogance of the medical profession, signs on with the death culture, endorses the "right to die," fails to acknowledge the effect of that endorsement on the rest of society, etc., it becomes less possible for those who are vulnerable and want to live to have their right and preference to live respected.
Sorry, lanthe, but this "culture of death" business is just so much hype from the anti-choice faction. Would that they had as much concern for innocent civilians dying from AIDS, hunger, warfare and "ethnic cleansing" as they have for fetuses and for people who want to simply walk away from life. With all due respect, your ideas about what might happen following approval of assisted suicide legislation are pure speculation. You have yet to demonstrate how physician-assisted suicide has caused anyone to be actively euthanized in America, or to have his life intentionally terminated against his will. On the other hand, do you deny that Terri Schiavo was brain dead and had no chance of recovery? Do you believe society gained anything by Sunny von Bulow's lying brain dead for nearly 28 years until she died yesterday? Do you feel it's appropriate for parents to allow an anacephalic fetus to be born so that they can watch it vegetate until it dies? Do you believe in abortion under ANY circumstances? You say you have no interest in religion, so where, exactly, are you coming from on this "right-to-life" issue. After all, opposition-to-abortion seems to be the other side of the opposition-to-assisted-suicide coin.
You should be sorry History Writer. Ianthe can speak for herself, but most anti euthanasia advocacy is not religiosly based and many opponents do not have any religious axes to grind. Indeed, many of the most prominent opponents are not religiously oriented at all, including the disability rights organizations, which are mostly very secular in outlook, pro choice on abortion, and liberal in their political outlook. Nat Hentoff is a vibrant anti euthanasia activist, and he is explicitly atheist and from the Beat crowd. Medical professional organizations are overwhelmingly anti assisted suicide and are not intent on pushing the theocracy.
Comments like yours about religion show your obsessions and those of many pro assisted suicide advocates, not the anti euthanasia coalition's. Moreover, it is two-dimensional thinking, that seeks to avoid the arguments being made.
One thing with absolute certainty that I can note. Although this thread is based in Medical expediency or the lack thereof it will be a freaken gold mine for the legal professionals. Offspring will be lawyering up and claiming their comatose or handicapped parents wanted no truck with assisted suicide or wanted it, according to what they perceive to be in the Wills. The proverbial "Hand Writing is on the Wall," couldn't be any more visible to people who follow human nature.
Blogger Wesley J. Smith said...
You should be sorry History Writer. Ianthe can speak for herself, but most anti euthanasia advocacy is not religiosly based and many opponents do not have any religious axes to grind. Indeed, many of the most prominent opponents are not religiously oriented at all, including the disability rights organizations, which are mostly very secular in outlook, pro choice on abortion, and liberal in their political outlook. Nat Hentoff is a vibrant anti euthanasia activist, and he is explicitly atheist and from the Beat crowd. Medical professional organizations are overwhelmingly anti assisted suicide and are not intent on pushing the theocracy.
Comments like yours about religion show your obsessions and those of many pro assisted suicide advocates, not the anti euthanasia coalition's. Moreover, it is two-dimensional thinking, that seeks to avoid the arguments being made.
December 08, 2008
I am a very Religious person Wesley. I have very strong faith. However, I concur with you. I feel each and every life is worth saving whether the life is hedonistic or godly. I wouldn't change that because I was a secular based humanist. That is just who I am.
Wesley, once again you conflate physician-assisted suicide with active euthanasia. This has happened far too often to be accidental. Is your purpose to disseminate propaganda, or to foster serious discussion of the issues? And exactly what are the "comments about religion" to which you refer, that show my "obsession" with the subject?
Yes, HistoryWriter, you should be sorry, for your own obsession and failure to have done more self-examination, if you are capable of it, for your failure to have addressed the example I have set forth other than by having accused me of "imagining" while you yourself were imagining that I was imagining, for hypocritically claiming to be "too polite" and continuing in that vein with "with all due respect," etc., and for lack of logic, the first rule of which is to assume nothing. You are taking the tack of trying to put the "opposition" to your own obsession on the defensive, and are being irrational. I note also that you asked why Wesley and I take the position you opposed, when in fact we are not the only ones here who take that position, and that while others here have spoken up for foeti, I have focused on the issue of what happens to the elderly and the otherwise vulnerable at the hands of hospitals and doctors in the atmosphere of the "death culture" which includes the acceptance of "living wills" no alternative to which is offered routinely in the course of "estate planning." In answer to your deliberately confrontational question, designed to try to put me on the defensive, about whether I believe in abortion, ever, I was the first associate editor of The Human Life Review and, like many others, find the subject extremely troubling and complex; I would be considered a "conservative feminist" in that I don't think it's good for women, physically as well as for other reasons, and in that I do believe in a woman's right to choose -- before the situation that might give rise to pregnancy occurs (a point that never seems to be brought up); I might also be considered utilitarian in that it's occurred to me that the gene pool might be better off without the issue of whoever would do such a thing casually. I don't believe in fertility treatment, which is messing with life at one of the spectrum and consistent with messing with it via "euthanasia" at the other end of the spectrum, and I don't believe that the issue of abortion ever should have been a matter of law one way or the other. Yes I most certainly do feel that society gained by Sunny von Bulow's having been "allowed" to live for 28 years until she died the other day (not yesterday), whether she ever woke up or was deemed by anyone, doctor or otherwise, as possibly going to wake up or not, for to have "terminated" her life would have been murder, which is a crime and an offense against society just as it would have been against her and those who loved her, and set a precedent for "terminating" others, just as ratifying euthanasia does -- a very simple point about which, as you have given no indication that you comprehend it, you accuse me of having failed to "prove" the connection. Moreover, you continue to display your ignorance by having termed her "brain dead." Once a person is brain dead, they die, and there is nothing anyone can do about it; they don't continue to live beyond a short time, let alone for 28 years; as a result of brain activity, their organs fail, their body may evidence temperature fluctuations, and it's not a pretty process. State health departments require those who have been declared brain dead to be disconnected from life support immediately and their bodies removed from the hospital floor because the dying body of someone who is truly brain dead is not hygeinic. Organs are harvested from people who have been declared brain dead and who have previously consented to such harvesting, or whose legally authorized representatives have consented to it, immediately after that declaration has been made not only because the organs are needed by others immediately, but also because if they are not removed right away, they will fail imminently as an inevitable consequence of actual brain death. People confuse "brain death, persistent vegetative state, and coma" (and medicine itself isn't entirely clear about the latter two, especially "pvs"), all the time, and that is a huge danger, of which your own confusion about them is an example. You call those who have recognized the existence, and the danger, of the "death culture" as "anti-choice," indicating that you object to objections to your own position, and as for your statement beginning "would that," obviously you feel that they "should" show more concern for the issues that concern you than for those with which they have chosen to be concerned. You don't get it, obviously, but you are exemplifying the fascistic attitude of liberals. People do have a right to be concerned about what they choose to be concerned about, and that right will be lost if your attitude prevails. I'm concerned about what I've seen at close hand and know is a dire and imminent danger to all of us who ever become old or otherwise disabled and at the mercy of hospitals and doctors as they now routinely behave, and at the mercy of the death culture which has given them free rein to behave as they do, and at the mercy of the effects on society of the attitude of people such as you, who place faith in "modern medicine" but do not even know what "brain death" really is, or to what danger having executed a "living will" might one day lead, just as the proliferation and acceptance of such documents has placed others who do not even have them. Of course I'm concerned about the plight of the other groups you mentioned, as I have no reason to believe that others whose positions you oppose do not, but if we don't survive ourselves, right here, we can't do anything about their plights. I wasn't present in Terry Schiavo's situation and have no actual knowledge of what was going on, only of what the media reported, which I know from direct experience is not always complete, let alone complete accurate, nor were you, and I would not presume to render a judgement about it, as you are doing. I don't know with absolute certainty what I would prefer to do concerning an ancephalic infant of my own, as I have never been in that situation, and I don't presume to predict in advance what my own reaction to things of which I have no direct experience, as you presume to do, and as you and others who have signed and have faith in "living wills" have done about situations that have not even yet manifested and cannot be accurately predicted, let alone in detail. As for religion, you make a logical error in assuming that it is a prerequisite for having an opinion on abortion or any other issue. As for those who "simply want to walk away from life," whose desire in that direction you have taken it upon yourself to support, apparently because you partake of it yourself, one answer is that they and those who support their "right" are a danger to the rest of us because they endorse the opposite of what is necessary to the survival of society and its members, which is a fundamental position that life is valuable, and as for your demand that I "prove" that the ratification of assisted suicide has caused anyone to be actively euthanized in America, you're (to put it politely) up a creek, because legislative approval of assisted suicide already has happened in this country, and I've seen with my own eyes someone being actively and deliberately euthanized, and, in fact, at the same hospital that is home to and vaunts itself on the fame of and "end-of-life pioneer" who, I have been told by someone in a position to know, encouraged Kevorkian to set out on the path he did. I've seen it; you've given no indication that you have, and in fact you are taunting me to prove what you claim does not and could not possibly exist. Not that you even know what "brain dead" means. Another answer to your claim that those who "simply want to walk away from life" would be, by those who share Wesley's point of view, is that they need and deserve psychiatric help. I am not optimistic that all of them could benefit from it; Wesley's position, I think, is that they are entitled to it nonetheless and that it is in the vital interest of society for them to receive it; I agree with him in principle, when it comes to being charitable to one's fellow man, though I don't think it would work in every case. Being less "Christian" and charitable than Wesley and others here, who may consider what I am about to say inhumane, utilitarian, horrifying, and against their philosophy of the value of each human life, I think that the radical, quickest, and most effective solution to the "death culture," and the quickest way for those of us who recognize its danger, prefer that it did not exists, and need to be saved from it, would be, theoretically, for the proponents and seekers of "euthanasia" and of "assisted suicide," which is one of its manifestations, and those who want to be able "simply to walk away from life," all to put their money where their mouths are and get on with it, tonight; if that "modest (and merely theoretical) suggestion" actually were to manifest tonight, and every single object of it, here and abroad, were to follow it, the rest of us would wake up in a healthier and safer society and world tomorrow. Again, it's merely a theoretical, radical solution, which SHS will consider outrageous, and for good reason. But it's a logical extension of what you have made it obvious that you think should have happened to Sunny von Bulow and Terry Schiavo, about whom you have no idea of whether or not they "simply wanted to walk away from life," just as you had no idea that they were not "brain dead" or of what actually can go on in a hospital courtesy of the "end-of-life" juggernaut these days, and about what should be done with an ancephalic infant. "But no," the proponents of the "right to die" would protest, "we don't want to die right now; we just want the 'freedom to choose' should it ever become an issue for us." The problem with that is that as long as they have the right to the "possibility," the "possibility," which has manifested already as reality, of forced euthanasia looms over the rest of us. Obviously, you don't get it, and I don't expect that someone who refers to life as a "vale of tears" or considers it normal for a person "to want to walk away from life" would. You demand answers to all of your questions, taking the offensive because your position is weak, but have not proven willing or able to address, let alone refuse, all my points, and that's par for the course. Death is inevitable, and as such does not need any "right" to it or even "choice" for it to be ratified, the claims of those who seek permission to choose it at will and for the sake of their own convenience notwithstanding; life is fragile, as well as desired and desireable, and does require protection. That's why the law exists. Even those who want to turn the underlying purpose of the law, which regards life as a natural and desireable state, on its head by having the law ratify the right to suicide and assisted suicide, based on the argument of "quality of life," "freedom of choice," "individual sovereignty," etc., are talking about what life, not death. The error is the arrogance of assuming that life, which is absolute in terms of whether it exists or not, and in terms of each member of society's right to it (a right claimed and enjoyed, as well, by those who promote the death culture and its various manifestations), can rightly be categorized in terms of "quality," a categorization which then can be, and has been already, used to justify euthanasia as well as suicide and assisted suicide. Arrogance is, in fact, an anti-social quality, and one of its components is inability or refusal to understand, exercise, or respect logic, reason, and the connection of one thing to another; rather, its approach is irrational, incomplete, and fragmented, as in your asking me to provide "one" example of how ratification of assisted suicide leads to euthanasia, which I'd already done. Those who oppose the death culture oppose it for reasons of self-preservation, because they understand the connection between one thing and another, one person and another, the individual and the society in which s/he lives, and because they value life and care, as those who are not antisocial do, about their fellow man -- and are doing their best to act accordingly as well as for the sake of their own survival, without which they can't help anyone in the categories you have listed. Those who endorse the death culture are thinking of their own selfish desires, have proven (you serve, in this regard, as the example that "proves" what you term my "idea") often that they do not have their facts straight or understand the ramifications of what they accept and want the rest of us to accept, feel entitled to choice but do not respect the rights of those who choose otherwise, and simply want their way, while claiming that their getting it affects no one else. If you are convinced that ratifying the right "simply to walk away from life" and to assisted suicide is harmless to others, why argue it here? Because you want your way, and those who SHS's position and those who share it are a threat to your getting your way.
I take it back. Terri Schiavo was not "brain dead within the flat-line definition. On the other hand, her cognition was somewhere below the level of a turnip, so for all practical purposes she was. As for your argument, what it appears to come down to (after filtering out the ad hominems and cutting down the sentence structure to non-Faulkner lengths) is that you're worried that if I can do something to me with the assistance of my doctor, then someone can do something to you against your will. That is, of course, patently nonsensical and borders on paranoia. I trust you won't object to my long-distance psychoanalysis, which is no worse (nor and less presumptuous) than your own posits that anyone who would considers suicide is in need of psychiatric treatment. I particularly like your suggestion that all proponents of assisted suicide go ahead and do it. As Scrooge observed of the poor, "if they be like to die they had better do it and reduce the surplus population." Or perhaps it was Swift whose "modest proposal" you were regurgitating. Would you find it offensive if I suggested, in a similar vein, that evangelical Christians repair to a mountaintop in January to await the Rapture? You suggest that those who disagree with you are antisocial, which is, of course, even more nonsensical than the argument about "you do it to you and they'll do it to me." But I should make clear that I care a tremendous amount for my fellow humans --- to the extent that I'd like to see them protected from the ministrations of self-righteous busybodies. Enough said.
HW: They name is crass.
I also never said everyone who believes in assisted suicide should do it. I said that all suicidal people should receive suicide prevention, nor have I ever, ever said anything about reducing the "excess" population. Nor have I called people with whom I disgree anti social.
If you are just going to make things up, you are not worth interacting with.
HistoryWriter: You put your foot in it again, which is hardly surprising. Active euthanasia has happened far too often since the issue and practice of physician-assisted euthanasia has arisen to be accidental. You're not interested in "serious discussion"; you're interested in your own propaganda, which you try to project onto the other side just as you tried to project your imagination onto me, and in getting your own way. One example of what Wesley may have meant, by the way, about your obsession with religion as an issue was your comment to me about what you assume (a tell-tale element of obsession) is the connection between such "pro-life" issues as abortion and euthanasia, based on religious grounds. The obsessions I note in your writing are with the "right simply to walk away from life," your demands that I "prove" that of which I've already given example and which is in any event obvious, and your refusal to acknowledge what refutes your own point, as well as that your hobbyhorse is part of a larger societal framework, and that the rights accorded to an individual can affect, since we do live in a society, the rights of others. You're not doing "serious discussion"; you're catering to your own self-concept as an arguer while not being able to make your own point, and going on the attack because you don't have a logically proveable defense. You haven't proven, for example, that ratifying the "right to die" does NOT lead to active euthanasia. Instead, you're asking me to prove it for you by proving that it does. Similarly, no one can stop someone who really wants "to leave this vale of tears" from doing it if they act on their own and without having alerted others to their intention; assisted suicide requires "the other guy" to do it for one. Have you ever dealt with someone who had "made the choice" to pull the plug on someone else, or even had been affected by being involved with euthanasia in an animal shelter? Participating in the ending of another's life has an indelible effect on the soul, which, in my experience, is noticeable, and diminishes the value they place on life. That's why it poses a danger to the rest of society, as well as to themselves. There's a reason why the concept of, and the phrase,"a danger to oneself and others" exists. But there's no point in arguing this point to you; you, who have plunged ahead with false accusations in pursuit of your own obsession and desire to get your own way on a subject on which those here obviously disagree with you, and didn't even have your facts straight about brain death, already have decided that it's fine "simply to walk away from life" and that ratifying someone's right to do that does not affect others in society, and that those who oppose the death culture, whose lemming-like aspect poses a danger that you choose not to see, are merely "spreading propaganda." Your use of such terminology cannot claim credence when you don't even know what "brain death" means, or how much uncertainty and controversy there is about the definition of "persistent vegetative state," and when you have made false assumptions about the ramifications of your own "living will" and don't even understand that you have? You've simply decided that you are right, are trying to get your way, and are not capable of the "serious discussion" of which your own self-concept desperately wants you to prove that you are. If you could prove that what you want ratified does not lead to what it is empirically obvious that it does, it would be a different matter, but you can't, which is why you are demanding that I prove that it does, and refusing to acknowledge an example of it when it's been given. You're trying to use "chain of causation" to get someone else to prove what you yourself can't prove. What you have proven is that you don't know enough about the subject of your own obsession, re which you are desperate to get your way, even to be discussing it, let alone to be claiming to do it "seriously." You're on the defensive from the get-go, and trying by attacking and making false assumptions and accusations to put on the defensive those whose opposing position thus is a threat to your getting your way, because the point you are trying to make is a dud and a loser and can't be made, least of all by someone who doesn't even have their facts straight. But we are not subject to such disadvantage and do not labor under such misconception as you are, and do.
HistoryWriter: If you don't know that "brain death" causes, by cessation of brain activity, inevitable organ failure and death, you lack standing to compare Terry Schiavo's situation to that of a turnip or anything else. You have assumed the right to tell others what they "should" be concerned about, including those who wish "simply to walk away," for whose right to do that you have, obviously, particular concern, on top of which you apparently want us to be concerned about their "right to die," not their losing their lives, and have assumed the right to tell us not only about what to be concerned, but also in what respect. Everyone who doesn't cater to your way of seeing things is doing propaganda, even though you can't prove your own point. I don't know from Faulkner, and my tendency to long sentences comes from another source, but you're the only person who has indicated that they can't follow them, and, of course, their length is irrelevant to the issue you have claimed to wish to "discuss seriously." Go ahead and prove that what you say my point is is "patently nonsensical and borders on paranoia." That's right, go ahead and prove it. Then tell us all about how your omniscient knowledge includes having seen take place in a hospital what I have. On top of your claiming medical facts that you've got wrong, you also offer "long-distance psychoanalysis." It's my opinion that you need an intensive course of such at close range, from which you may not be capable of benefitting, but I didn't offer it before your accusations extended into that vein because that's not my field any more than it is yours. Again, you have your facts wrong even based on simple reading comprehension -- I said that based on my own understanding to date of Wesley's position on these matters, I believe that he would want those who wish to die to have the benefit of treatment made available to them. Nor did I "suggest" that the group in question commit suicide; I said that in theory, if they were to put their money where their mouth is, all at once, overnight,they would provide a radical solution to the threat they pose via their own endorsement of a radical solution to "insufficient quality of life." And calling my reference to Swift's "modest proposal" "regurgitating" is an example, provided by yourself, of the generic ad hominem attack. But to answer your question, no, I would not be offended if you suggested that evangelical Christians repair to a mountaintop to await the rapture. I wouldn't be surprised by it, either. I said that those who endorse the death culture are antisocial, not that those who disagree with me are, by the way, and my logic is not "you do it to you and they'll do it to me," but rather,"if society ratifies your having someone do it to you, it opens the door to someone being allowed to do it to someone else." Obviously you feel strongly about the right of your "fellow man" to "leave this vale of tears," to the extent that you term those who oppose its validation for the sake of other fellow men "self-righteous busybodies." If you want to see "self-righteous busybodies," I could show you some -- those who did not even know the person whose situation I've described previously, and felt entitled to cause her death -- among many others whose acceptance of the death culture has made them a danger to others as well (as they do not seem to realize) to themselves, and if they were only a danger to themselves, I wouldn't mind, but as they are not, I do. Moreover, I haven't "ministered" to anyone except a person who named me their health care proxy and attorney-in-fact and wanted me to do as I have done, and your assumption that I would even wish to "minister" to those you wish to "protect" is, consistent with your other assumptions, false. In any event, why would they need me to look out for them, when they have you, who claim much more interest in them and in their rights than I have, to look out for them? I second what Wesley has pointed out with reference to your making things up and your two-dimensional thinking that seeks to avoid the arguments being made, and you've provided sufficient evidence to prove not your point, but that you're not worth my interacting with either.
You know, HW-I find it intertesting that no one in your camp has noticed the double standard applied to Terri's case-when a man cheats on his nondisabled wife, he is a lowlife, but when he cheats on his profoundly disabled wife, he's a nice husband who should retain the role of "carrying out her wishes." All feminists should have been screaming at the top of their lungs during this travesty of justice, yet the ones who did were ignored.
A man starves his cognitively disabled wife to death while having an affair with someone else. Sisters of the world: any takers?
SAFEpres: Over here! I noticed it, and that no one was being heard about it. It didn't seem right to me that he, who was no longer even being a husband, was even opening his mouth about it when her blood relatives were closer to her and knew her longer and could understand her better than he did -- plus had no possible ulterior motives. I don't remember all the facts, but was there something in there about inheritance or life insurance policy, and financial benefit to him? Was it possible for him to have the marriage annulled or divorce her? Had she told him, or did he claim she had told him, that she would not want to be on life support? Had there been any reason for her to have discussed that with him, e.g. because she'd had a previous hospitalization, etc.? Who even THINKS about that stuff at that age? As I recall, he had no proof that she had told him, that those were her wishes, etc; it was just assumed that as he had the legal connection of marriage with her, and had lived with her more recently than her family had, he should prevail. It always seemed to me that the whole thing was to convenience him. As far as I know, she wasn't suffering. In this kind of thing, you can't know everything about the situation unless you're right there, but I agree with you, SAFEpres.
lanthe. I'm surprised at you. Everybody knows that it's totally illogical to try to prove a negative (as in "You haven't proven, for example, that ratifying the "right to die" does NOT lead to active euthanasia." And you're a lawyer? Wow! And Wesley --- where did I say that YOU said "anyone who believes in assisted suicide should do it." Are you confusing yourself with lanthe? ARE you "lanthe"?
History Writer: I didn't see Ianthe referenced and so I thought you were referring to me. Sorry for my confusion.
Carry on.
HistoryWriter: I really don't care whether you're surprised at me or not, or what your impression or opinion of me is, and I see problems in your character and psyche the significance of which you obviously do not understand. I agree with Wesley about your two-dimensional thinking, etc., I think you have head problems, and I don't find you worth taking up any more of my time. And by the way, "everybody" knows no such thing. Go attempt "serious discussion" with someone else.
One thing with absolute certainty that I can note. Although this thread is based in Medical expediency or the lack thereof it will be a freaken gold mine for the legal professionals. Offspring will be lawyering up and claiming their comatose or handicapped parents wanted no truck with assisted suicide or wanted it, according to what they perceive to be in the Wills. The proverbial "Hand Writing is on the Wall," couldn't be any more visible to people who follow human nature.
When I made that observation I forgot to mention another problem. ORGAN Harvesting. Someday there will be a serious back lash against this new age killing fields. Now that children are also being looked at for assisted suicide it becomes more problematic . A Dr. with the morals of the Illinois Governor in charge of creating medical boards is coming down the pipes. When the dust settles nobody will be going to hospitals. They will be to afraid.
Donnie: The person I've mentioned here didn't want to go to hospital because she was afraid, and she was right. "Hospitals kill people," she kept saying. In fact, she had relatives claiming what you described, the hospital itself lawyered up against her and the person she had chosen to be her health care proxy and exercise her power of attorney, and one of its witnesses was someone who had been butting in when I was trying to get her to the kind of medical care that would protect her when she went to hospital, and trying convince me to get her taken there there defenseless instead. I never saw anyone want to live, and fight to live, as much as she did, and the hospital was determined that she should die. and I've seen examples of the kind of doctor you're talking about, from many years since and continuing into the present; they're here, not coming down the pipes There's good reason to be afraid -- already.
My comments were directed at the fact that now more Judges are being swayed by the lawyers and families who are supposed to be the caretakers but actually gain from the patients death. Imagine the Menendezs brothers looking after the health & wishes of dear old dad.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/menendez/index_1.html
Donnie: I know they were, and I understand your point. But when I was doing the opposite, judges ruled against her life, and people, older people, yet, were yelling at me that I should think of myself and put myself first, that she was old and had had her life, etc. One was an 86 year old man who was so upset that he was screaming at me. The few people who understood what I was doing kept acting supportive as if I would need them to be (I knew I was doing the right thing, my min was made up, and I didn't need them to) and spoke to me of their respect and admiration for my taking the position I did, but I could tell that found it slightly bemusing and thought it a little over-idealistic and impractical of me to be doing the right thing. I don't know how they thought anyone could have lived with themselves by doing otherwise. But that's how people seem to think these days. It's unbelieveable but real.
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