"Suicide Counsellors" Show Futility of Legalization
Jack Kevorkian was the ground breaker in modern times: A man made world famous helping people with disabilities, the terminally ill, and the existentially suffering kill themselves. For that, he now makes $50,000 a speech. In Australia, Philip Nitschke has counseled the suicides of people who were not close to being terminally ill, and even argued it should be available to "troubled teens." Ditto the suicide clinics in Switzerland, where the Supreme Court recently granted a constitutional right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill.
In Germany, another one of these death fanatics has apparently set up shop. The government has obtain an injunction. From the story:
German police have issued a temporary restraining order against controversial euthanasia advocate Roger Kusch, prohibiting him from aiding any more people who want to end their own lives. The former Hamburg justice minister has helped at least five people to take their lives since June. Only one of those five was very seriously ill.
One answer suggested as a response to this morbid business is to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill. That would be folly, since it would accede to the premise that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering. Once that door is opened, the rest will eventually enter the way water flows through the breach in a dam.Moreover, legalization would not put these vultures out of business. They would merely say they have to help the people that the "unduly restrictive" law doesn't permit to end their suffering. And it would be harder to stop them then because we will have said that at least in some circumstances, it is right to help kill.
This is just common sense. Look at the Netherlands where some doctors with suicidal patients who might not qualify for euthanasia under the law refer patients to an online site that teaches them how to commit "autoeuthanasia," e.g., the latest euphemism for suicide.
Assisted suicide is a radical change in ethics that will prove, over the long run, impossible to meaningfully restrain once the basic premise becomes popularly accepted. And that is the argument we should be having. The very narrow debate in which we are now engaged to limiting assisted suicide to the terminally ill not only doesn't comport with the evidence of the consequences of assisted suicide consciousness, it is willful self delusion.
Labels: Assisted Suicide. Germany. Suicide Counselors. Culture of Death.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:13 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
That limiting assisted suicide to the terminally ill is even at issue is alarming; that means that allowing it for anyone else is a possibility. Another category under consideration must be people who are not terminally ill but who find life unbearable, whether or not they are on life support. That opens up a whole Pandora's box, and in the first place, if someone is terminally ill, they are, and I don't mean this disrespectfully, on the way out anyway, and find life unbearable, which brings it all back to one category, which is huge, which means that this debate isn't really about "limiting," but about expanding, which, again, is part of why it's alarming that the subject even is under discussion. It's like the reason why one should not allow oneself to be drawn into discussion with a salesman; it's a foot in the door. It doesn't matter whether someone is terminally ill or doesn't want to live for any other reason; it's still ending a life nature has not decided to end yet. One can't have a say about when one is born, which is under the purview of nature just as when one dies is. (In which case nature's rights being acknowledged, a concept of which I hadn't been aware before I saw mention of it here, might not be a bad idea.) I can understand a person wanting to end their life on their own terms, but assisted suicide is an oxymoron; if you can't do it on your own, it isn't suicide in the first place. Yes it's supposed to make it possible for someone's wishes to be carried out, less likely for the attempt to be botched, etc. But all this wanting control over things resonates with the concept of fascism.
As someone familiar with spiritual study, the work mediums do, etc., I can't say that I've ever heard of an instance in which it was ok from the standpoint of "the other side" for someone to have committed suicide, and I can say that I've heard of a number of instances of spirits not being able to cross over properly, and of short lives of those who according to the theory of reincarnation had to come back to fill out their time because they had been supposed to live longer and didn't, including as the result of suicide; whether those instances are actual rather than simply hypothesized can't be proven to everyone's complete satisfaction, but it's all consistent with our laws against suicide. Moreover, there is sometimes spiritual work that a person has to do before crossing over even when their body has failed them. I don't know if anyone ever has published the idea that ethical, honorable, and extremely competent psychics, mediums, astrologers, etc. should be part of the "consultation" process if there is one, but if they were, the information they provided would be interesting, and I'd guess that it would generally yield "No, don't do this." In fact, from what I've seen, it would be a lot better if such as they were the arbiter rather than the law; it seems it's much too easy to get the law to deviate from what is spiritually correct these days.
If I heard right what I heard in passing on a BBC radio broadcast yesterday, Malaysia is considering putting those who attempt suicide in jail, and making sure that they receive counselling there "so that they can understand that this is not right."
I wonder what Malaysia does or would do with those willing to "assist" in suicide, which, again, is an oxymoron to start with, nor is it right spiritually because then they become part of another person's death, which is not parallel to midwifery, and which messes with their own energy (which already is off course) and makes them dangerous, and if everyone's death should be their own business and others shouldn't be allowed to interfere, well, it should be one to a customer.
At the end of my first paragraph above I said I can understand it; I don't mean that it should be legal for anyone to commit suicide, with or without help, or that people should be able to have whatever they want, which is part of the underlying problem in terms of the way the world has become these days. It used to be enough of a problem that people committed suicide on their own, not only with respect to their lives, but also with respect to those around them, and to society; now they want entitlement not only to commit suicide, but to have help doing it. If someone wants to do it for reasons of honor, or for any other reason, and turns out to be able to accomplish it, there's nothing anyone can do about it, but why do we sometimes feel the emotional injury we do when that happens if it still isn't wrong for them to have done it? My own experience is with someone who died on the basis of a "living will" they did not want honored and that was not consistent with their own nature, and whose life the hospital would have found another way to end, based on what it and other hospitals have done in similar situations, if there had been no "living will," and thus I know how dangerous opening the Pandora's box can be, and how tied the very issue of assisted suicide even being under discussion already is to outright murder in situations it claims not to address. Is it all right with those who "want" it for those who don't want to die at all to end up dead as a result? Because that's the way it's working out, and it's extremely concerning that "bioethicists" as well as courts, beaurocracies, the media, and the public accept the word of doctors and hospitals involved in particular cases as fact. To say that the situation is out of control already is vast understatement, and no one would dare try to bring up legalizing assisted suicide if it weren't and if they weren't on the same page with its being out of control already, and technology, or costs, are not responsible. It's human incompetence, inefficiency, laziness, narcissism, and greed in medicine, hospitals, and the unnecessary institution of "bioethics" that they have created in order to be able to get away with things that are responsible and are trying to put the blame on other factors, which they themselves have created, in order to distract attention from themselves, which the rest of the world has bought into and let them get away with. I'm not worried about what happens to those dumb enough to have bought into it, e.g. with smug "assurance" that their "documents are in order" and who "shouldn't have to suffer"(sorry to sound utilitarian about it, SHS, but their loss would not injure the gene pool, on which we do all depend, or hinder the progress of mankind, which human exceptionalism values); I'm worried about those more competent and brave who get pulled under by its undertow.
All this "midwifery" stuff -- that's for something that the person being born can't control when they are completely dependent on (an)other(s); now the person who wants to die has control, by which s/he asserts a right to help dying -- it's not even logical. But then, logic is not the priority of the "great midwives" of the death culture. It isn't even logical to assume that where the person is going is better than the place they are leaving, rather than worse, and I'm not talking religion at all, though it does one remind one of what those who deliberately flew into the World Trade Center etc. had been trained to believe. It's as though the person is going on a "journey" (which I believe they are, in spiritual terms, but it's one that one is not supposed to start off on a moment too soon) for which they are packing eagerly. Singer goes on and on about "journey" (and I have no idea what he's talking about, nor do I even want to know, but is there a connection there?). A person might not make it into life without help, and can't grow up without help, and becomes independent in mind and action, and then needs help again physically as a physically sick or very old person, but wouldn't the last part of that mean that either their independence of mind is not diminished, which means they don't need help dying, or that it is, which means they are in no condition to decide that they should die and have someone's help doing it? On top of everything else, everyone wants to be around babies; it's not normal to want to watch someone actually die before one's eyes, though. Not unless one really, really hates them, or is a murderer. It just isn't. I can understand the intellectual, scientific interest Kevorkian claimed in understanding what happens in the brain during death; this is what happens when we value science...but with that door open, we end up with him, and an insane society. Empirical science just isn't worth it, and the human race was doing better when it explained things via myth. Not that I ever understood why they even needed those explanations; look around, things are nice; leave it alone!
Lanthe -
In regard to your comment about mediums and so forth, I just want to add that I've done a lot of reading on NDE's...
Hang on - Yes, Wesley, I *do* intend to make this fit the topic, I promise! ((hugs))
...and there are two things that I note the most. 1) Suicidal people who attempted suicide and have an NDE before being saved are significantly less likely to attempt suicide again than those who don't. 2) People who've had NDEs have a statistically greater regard for life despite having a statistically lessened fear of death. They're not afraid of death anymore and they feel there is a purpose, so they no longer want to run away from life.
And I get most of my info on NDEs from reading the works of Dr. Melvin Morse, who doesn't believe in God or even in an afterlife, but has proven scientifically that NDEs are real. Go figure.
Anyway, to tie this in, it's like I said before, either there's a God or there isn't, and if there is, then people who press others into suicide risk their own souls. If there isn't, then they're pushing people into a black oblivion, turning them into nothing but bone fragments. What kind of good does either senario do? Just on general principle we ought to reject suicide in all its forms.
That people close to death who have experiences of some kind fear death less and yet love life more tells me something - that there is no point at all to suicide. That life is what we're here for, no matter what you believe about what happens afterward, and that you don't need to fear death.
And that's exactly it - people who push for assisted suicide are part of what I see of an emerging culture of *fear of death.* They can't abide it, so they have to manipualte it, and it's either because they've completely given up hope, or because they want to legalize abominations in the hopes of somehow artificially extending their own lives.
At that rate, their "patients" are mostly guinea pigs.
Lanthe -
In regard to your comment about mediums and so forth, I just want to add that I've done a lot of reading on NDE's...
Hang on - Yes, Wesley, I *do* intend to make this fit the topic, I promise! ((hugs))
...and there are two things that I note the most. 1) Suicidal people who attempted suicide and have an NDE before being saved are significantly less likely to attempt suicide again than those who don't. 2) People who've had NDEs have a statistically greater regard for life despite having a statistically lessened fear of death. They're not afraid of death anymore and they feel there is a purpose, so they no longer want to run away from life.
And I get most of my info on NDEs from reading the works of Dr. Melvin Morse, who doesn't believe in God or even in an afterlife, but has proven scientifically that NDEs are real. Go figure.
Anyway, to tie this in, it's like I said before, either there's a God or there isn't, and if there is, then people who press others into suicide risk their own souls. If there isn't, then they're pushing people into a black oblivion, turning them into nothing but bone fragments. What kind of good does either senario do? Just on general principle we ought to reject suicide in all its forms.
That people close to death who have experiences of some kind fear death less and yet love life more tells me something - that there is no point at all to suicide. That life is what we're here for, no matter what you believe about what happens afterward, and that you don't need to fear death.
And that's exactly it - people who push for assisted suicide are part of what I see of an emerging culture of *fear of death.* They can't abide it, so they have to manipualte it, and it's either because they've completely given up hope, or because they want to legalize abominations in the hopes of somehow artificially extending their own lives.
At that rate, their "patients" are mostly guinea pigs.
T.E. - I completely agree with you on everything you said.
From all the talks I've had with mediums, and all the messages I've gotten from the other side that were too detailed and in correspondence with what goes on here not to be genuine, I have no doubt that there is another stage of existence after we cross over. I wouldn't even know how to define God, but I know that we continue after we've finished our work here, and that we're not supposed to mess with the timing.
The other day I asked a superb medium what she could get psychically about the reason for the death culture, and she said that the word "frustration" came in to her first, and that people are frustrated over not being able to control things and want to be in control, and that they don't realize how much technology can do, and that they have much more control over technology than they realize. Well, that's what she got.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home