🚀 go-pugleaf

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                Newsgroups: talk.euthanasia, aus.general, aus.politics

In article <FF952D3w165w@orchide.dialix.oz.au>,
jan@orchide.dialix.oz.au (jan) wrote:
>dbromage@metz.une.edu.au (David Bromage) writes:
>
[snip]
>> Passive euthanasia is letting nature take its course without giving
>> treatment to prolong life. Active euthanasia is the deliberate taking of
>> a life WITH THE PATIENT'S CONSENT.
>
>Passive euthanasia is a contradiction in terms 

How do you figure that?

>hence for the purposes
>of this debate the "passive" form is generally referred to as physician
>assisted suicide (PAS).  

Just how many references do you want me to present to show that PAS
opponents persistently equate it with a "right to kill"  patients?

Burke J. Balch wrote in NRL News: "The [Ninth Circuit Court] 
opinion justifies the killing not only of those supposedly 
competent individuals ..."  [http://www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/court.txt]
Note that this opinion struck down a law against providing the means to 
suicide (ie. assistance) at the person's request -- not actually
killing anyone.

When that same case, went to the U. S. Supreme Court, Cardinal Joseph
Bernardin wrote in a letter to the Justices: " When [the law] begins
to legitimate the taking of life as policy..."

The crux of another decision [http://www.rights.org/deathnet/us2.html]
was the injustice that some people may be able to control the manner
of their own deaths by 'passive' means (refusing life-sustaining 
treatment) while others, because of the exigencies of their 
illnesses, do not have that option open to them.

As to the distinction between 'active' and 'passive' euthanasia -- and
whether it is morally significant -- see James Rachels, *The End of 
Life.*  Better yet, Rachels and Thomas D. Sullivan have a published 
point-counterpoint on the question reprinted in the Baird and 
Rosenbaum volume *Euthanasia: The Moral Issues.*  [I posted full 
bibliographic references to these and the books below a few days ago.]

>The right of a person to refuse treatment is
>one neither (AFAIK) side of the debate wants to question.

<*sigh*> Limited historical perspective, too.  

A view from the front row: "Over the past decade the issue of whether 
it is ever permissible to withhold life-sustaining treatment has been 
debated by doctors and ethicists and in the courts and state 
legislatures [Marcia Angell, *New England Journal of Medicine*, vol. 
319 (Nov. 17, 1988), p. 1348].

For some of the arguments on this and the related issue of
withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration, see Joanne Lynne,
ed., *By No Extraordinary Means.*

With only one exception that I know of (the bishop of Rochester NJ,
who supported of Joseph and Julia Quinlan's quest to remove their 
hopelessly comatose daughter from artificial life support so she
could die naturally, unlike the nuns at the hospital) many of the same
organizations who most vocally oppose PAS were were equally aggressive 
in opposing the right to refuse treatment.  They still are.  See the
VESS site [http://www.euthanasia.org/fastaccs.html] for details on the 
campaign to win that right in Scotland.  They are also active in 
opposition to Living Wills, which are often used to refuse treatment 
at some point,  e. g., *Terminating Life*, ed. by McKuen and Boucher, 
contains anti-Living Will diatribes by Joseph P. Meissner (president, 
Ohio Right to Life) and J. Wilkie (president, National Right to Life 
Committee) circa 1980.  For a more recent recrudesce that includes an 
attack on the so-called 'Christian alternative' as well, point your 
browser at http://www.awinc.com/partners/bc/commpass/lifenet/curebef.html

>Hope this helps.

- -- 
Frank Weaver                                       Encrypted email preferred
weaver1@world.std.com                              PGP KeyID: 0AAE84B
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                         Blessed is the Water of Life,
            by the grace of the holy trinity: yeast, malt and hops

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