Noah
Posts: 1660
Joined: 7/5/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: marieToo
Unless they ask for it, or its in a living will to disconnect life support, we dont get to decide for thinking people how, when and where they should die, no matter what tragic position they may be in.
I get the impression that this is an abstract consideration for you, that you have never been in the position of deciding--and deciding not to decide is a decision just the same.
It is, thankfully, an abstract matter for me at this point.
After a deeply moving conversation with someone who was presented with the kind of dilemma this discussion is about it is clear to me that such a person spends the rest of his life with the burden of his decision, either way. If he walks away from a soul in agony all the while muttering to himself "well there is a rule and I followed it and rules are more important than souls" then that is the burden he has chosen to carry. At first it may seem light.
I am really struck, by the way, by what seems to be your unquestioning implicit acceptance of the proposition that physical death is always and only a taking away.
I suppose hell for you might be to lie in unrelievable agony from incurable injury while those around you spend eternity going through the cupboards and drawers looking for your misplaced permission-to-kill slip, all the while sucking up scarce medical resources which could be put to use to actually heal someone else.
I'm not saying that I am in favor of legalizing any form of euthansia, Marie. I don't trust that much in the wisdom of government. I'm only speaking out in favor of a possible place for mercy in what as you rightly point out is a circumstance fraught with the deepest moral peril.
As for your "sound mind and body" comment, please consider the person too distracted by life or just too scared to face up to these issues while his body and mind are still sound. The question only impresses itself on him when it is too late, by your standard. His body is now unsound and so painfully so that his judgement is no longer unclouded by any reasonable standard.
So his punishment for not pausing to think in advance--as you obviously have--may actually be unrelieved physical agony, humiliation, and needless postponement of liberation from the body which is now only torturing him. This strikes me as a cruel and unusual punishment for you to qualify yourself to sentence someone to, just for the crime of not getting some legal papers drawn up.
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