Bah, if the cretins wanted to see any of me stash they'd have to suffer me company as long as it lasts. No I think there would have to be more than consent, there would have to be a medically observable condition causing great pain or distress....
In that case it would be the doctor's decision based on the patient's prognosis - is he or she likely to suffer agonising pain, with no prospect of recovery or a reasonable quality of life? I agree it's incredibly problematic when you consider having euthanasia as a free choice when no terminal illness is involved, but where there is no chance of recovery and all the patient faces is a slow and painful death, the case is much clearer and arguably it's inhumane to deny people the prospect of dying painlessly in that situation.
I understand and agree completely with your emotions on this, but wouldn't this inevitably mean drawing a line somewhere about what is classed as too much pain and also a decision made about reasonable quality of life. Once a line is drawn then you'll always end up with someone just on the wrong side of it and a cause is then created to include the excluded. The obvious assistance to the terminally ill is easy, the difficulty is always at the edges of law and with death the result of poor legislation I believe its best left alone.
I think that once a definite irreversible decline in health has been established, to the point that the patients existence is nothing but a pain, both literally and in the sense that they would feel like nothing more than a hinderance. Only then should it be allowed. Good point about the humane 'pet euthanasia' Lith. I think there may be some religious beliefs that interfere with common sense on this one. Only god can giveth and taketh away. Unless we're talking animals of cause...... anyone for a lamb casserole?!
I think this is a fair notion. There are clear criteria to make such a judgement based on expert medical opinion. Yes there is a point where we will need to draw a line, and it's wise to draw the line on the side of caution. We can be pretty sure when somebody has no hope of surviving any particular terminal illness, and can make a judgement as to when they lapse into a state where nothing is possible and all that's left is the pain. If the person decides that in such a state they would prefer to be given a general anaesthetic they would not come round from, that's surely their choice to make. With legal safeguards in place the "slippery slope" argument becomes irrelevant. Any campaign to widen the criteria would need to be discussed and debated on its own terms and the same principles of objection could be raised - that we may have legal euthaniasia in some limited cases does not imply that the boundaries are more likely to be widened. Such 'slippery slope' or 'crossing a line' arguments are generally fallacious.
Yeh, I enjoyed Logans run. Maybe we should have a carousel. I see those in pain and suffering. It is easy to want to dead head them, but the law is the law and our law and ethics do in part follow the doctrine of the holy bible of christianity. Thou shalt not kill. We can argue that it is the humane thing to do, dead head those who are suffering agonising pain. Unfortunately it would not be ethically right. However, we can help them and try medication like morphene and other pain killer to weaken the pain. What God has said, if there is a God, we should stick to them. Ethically it is not our decision to terminate anybody regardless of circumstances.In a somewhat paradox, the loving thing you could do is comfort them and give them medication to take the harshness of the pain. Such drugs exist. That is my opinion. People may differ. As before, I respect peopl'es opinion, even if I don't agree
I'd like to venture at this point, given two premises: 1) That euthanasia in circumstances of extreme pain is the humane thing 2) And that conservatives are an extreme pain That euthanising conservatives is acceptable....
Given some of his political views, I think that's entirely rational. Anyway, euthanising John would be legal, he self defines as a mouse and in an age of subjective identification we must respect his opinion. Honestly, in my college elections only women can vote for the women's officer, but anyone can self define as a woman, which I did, and was allowed to vote. As John would say, political correctness gone mad....
Okay, so say it's up to doctors to diagnose a patient and decide that they are in enough pain to be killed, what happens when you get shifty doctors in the position? There are a lot of doctors that are slanted, I hear about it all the time, having two parents who work in the medical industry. I have a friend who can walk into his doctors office, ask for anything, and it's handed to him, or one of my teachers who was given a prescription and his doctor never bothered to tell him that one of the side effects were heart attacks and he did in fact suffer from one. My point is, is that can doctors really be trusted to make such a decision? We'd like to think so, but I think otherwise.
If you have a shifty doctor, a la Harold Shipman, they could kill you without euthanasia being legal. Trust in doctors is a fandamental pillar of health services. Where you get abuse it doesn't tend to undermine the system as a whole, it tends to reflect on the individual....
We're only talking about old people though. OK so a mistake here, a bribe there - doesn't really matter though, does it?
Hah, but that's the thing. It does matter. Even if just a few people are going to be abused by the system then it's not a good one. And Peace how is it a fault of the individual for trusting what they're doctor prescribes them and then suffering a heart attack as the out come? Perhaps me and you know enough to research things before we take them - most don't. They do what they're doctors say. I think doctors are just people, and people shouldn't be trusted to play natures roll.
The trouble is, for any serious ailment, you're placing your life in the hands of a doctor. If you have a malignant tumour, for example, you can either sit around waiting to die, or you can go to a doctor to operate on you under anasthesia. Now say in 99.999% of cases, the doctor is not corrupt and will save your life, what do you do? It's certain death, or the 0.001% chance you've got a Harold Shipman who will kill you. You simply have to trust doctors in these cases, trust is fundamental....
