StrangerThan
Posts: 1515
Joined: 4/25/2008
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: StrangerThan
I had this talk with my girl this morning. She works in the medical field and has both a more pragmatic and probably realistic view of life and death. And before I pose the questions, understand I have no real answers for anyone else. I think in terms of my personal choices and what they would be on a given subject.
So here they are.
Abortion. If you are a pro-choice person, is there a point where you view the process as murder or is it until birth, a choice?
Executions: Regardless of whether or not they deter criminals, do you think executing someone for the murder of another to be an acceptable form of punishment? If not, are there instances where it would be?
Right to die: How do you view right to die laws that exist for the terminally ill? Should it be a right in your view? Or do you believe that medical science has evolved to a point where one can die in peace without suffering? If you were the person making the decision, what would drive that process, fear? Economics? What?
Pulling the plug: One of the areas in which I've always found pro-lifers to be inconsistent in defending life is removing others from life support. Aside from Terri Shaivo (sp), it is a common practice done in hospitals every day that generates little if any uproar. But in a technical sense, it is taking the life of another person. A few months ago a story ran on the front page of Yahoo about a man who had been brain dead, or at least thought to be, for 17 years who suddenly woke and came back with most if not all of his mental faculties. If you were called upon to make that decision, do you feel it to be one that could haunt you?
I posted this thread because death can be and most often is an intensely personal experience, and because my own thinking has evolved over the years to where things don't sit in shades of black and white anymore but contain a lot of gray areas. Much of that has come about because I actually put thought into it, rather than followed along behind some sloganeer. Over the years, I've heard and used many of the catch phrases I've seen here and recognize them as waypoints on the road to the notions I currently hold. Another driving force behind posting a thread I knew would be divisive in some ways, wasn't to highlight those differences, but get true opinion.
I used to support the right to an abortion 100 percent. Now, I know, there are people who like to couch that term in different words, things like pro-choice, anti-choice, or pro-life. We tend to do that as a society, create terms that are more sanitary and more removed from the actual action in order to make it more palatable to more people. The truth is though, the base line concept is the right to end a life. Opponents call it murder. Proponents call it a choice.
Personally, I think its a bit of both. People will debate when and where a fetus becomes a baby all day long. For some that moment is conception. For others it is when they can hold it in their hands. I've written some... probably harsh words on the topic, saying at one point that when you can jerk it out, stick a bottle in its mouth and it doesn't die, then I'll agree its murder. I've also written that I see nothing sacred about life in general, that the one thing the human race has proven itself capable of regardless of war, famine or feast, is reproduction. I've written that I didn't believe that life itself was anything close to a miracle, that God gave you the ability and therefore didn't need to oversee the production line of human bodies that the ability would become.
Over the years I've watched the battles. When pro-lifers couldn't strike down the right up front, they began working on it piece by piece. I've watched pro-choice people defend each of those pieces even when they fly in the face of common sense. And in that is where my thoughts on the matter currently lie. I do not support the its my body sentiment. It may be your body, but the life within it is not yours. I do believe in personal liberty however and that is probably the only thing that keeps me on the pro-choice side of the debate. I believe that choice crosses a line somewhere though to where it becomes a choice to kill. If I were writing legislation to deal with it, I'm not sure where I'd put that line, but late term choices aren't choices to me. They are killing. It is understandable in some cases where health or life of the mother is at stake, but to simply decide I think is wrong and will no longer support. I also believe there are some father's rights issues left to be addressed. Face it, it took two to create, and part of the life growing is part of him. In fact, in this age of worrying about what everyone else feels and thinks, this area may eventually be the inroad the pro-life camp needs to stop some abortions. And there is the fact that viability is an issue where the dates are pushed further and further back each year. I don't buy the argument that you have to wait until it can survive on its own. The same people who would argue that, would be incensed if their son, mother, father were left to die after an operation because they needed a breathing tube or feeding tube and were not considered viable on their own.
By the same token, the right to die issue has always befuddled me. I've never understood those who claim to be compassionate denying someone the right to choose a more dignified and less painful manner of passing when the option of passing or remaining didn't exist. I've seen hospice at work and know the care they give. I know the quality of it, and the drugged out wait for that last breath. That's all fine and dandy. I can agree that the final moments are fairly peaceful. It is a long road to those final moments in many cases though. The few days of morphine induced peace at the end of it, is I suppose for those who would deny that right, the reward for the weeks of fear, pain, and reduction in the quality of life that come with dying slowly. My own thoughts on the matter come from watching loved ones die slowly. Three from cancer, a couple from alzheimers (sp). Hospice is a great place to end up in those cases. It is a shitty road getting there. What I take from this debate isn't the right to die, but rights in general when it comes to personal choices and liberty. I don't think that right should extend to just anyone, but to those who have no option as to whether they live or die, it should.
Honestly I've never put much thought into executions even though I included it on the list. If we're certain the person is guilty, then I have no problem with it at all. I'd much rather see all the parlimentary procedures reduced in those cases and the sentence handed down in a swifter manner. Then again, certainty is an issue. I can see the debate there where the innocent might be wrongfully executed. In many cases however, there is no uncertainty. When there's none, I'd rather it be done than left to linger.
The final issue of pulling the plug, is something I would hate to do. I could and would. I can honestly say though that I hope I'm never in that position. I do consider it an acceptable form of killing in our society. If you kept them alive for whatever reason, and then decide to terminate for whatever reason, the time of death is not listed at the point a brain died or at the point an accident occurrred. It is listed at the point they cease to live. If anything, this debate has pushed me to get a living will done. My girl, who as I said before works in the medical field, told me last night that her understanding was to never pull a plug if the family members were against it, no matter what a living will stated. So those who argued that point, have a valid point.
I'm not arguing with anyone here, just posting my own thoughts on it. I'm the kind of person who always leans towards personal rights and liberties, but there is a need for common sense within that leaning. Unfettered right is as dysfunctional for a society as is heavy handed rule. I think some of these issues, particularly abortion, are the driving force behind what has become a politically and socially polarized nation. I think if we are ever to close that gap and learn again to live peacefully with each other we're going to have to find a compromise somewhere.
My 3 cents.
|
RE: Acceptable Murder - 
Profile
. 
. 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread