🚀 go-pugleaf

bpl@lynx.co.nz (Brian Paul Lilburn) writes:

 

>But if I crawled in mortal illness up to Hippocrates (supposing I lived
>in his era) and asked him to help me end my life, and he refused; would
>he allow me to crawl away and find another herbal expert to do it for 
>me, *or would he take steps to prevent me, or follow me and then 
>watch who helped me and then accuse that person of killing and have
>the authorities punish him*? I doubt it. But you see what I'm getting
>at - the biggoted 'hypocrates' that now agitates against V.E. from
>the medical establishment.

Apart from the ad-homenium on the medical profession, your argument
only points out that abstract morality is so easy anyone can do it,
its only when you have to put your morality into practice when difficulties
arise. Moral decisions _are_ difficult. That doesn't mean we should avoid
making moral decisions however, they are invariably important.


>>>                 If you met a soldier crawling out of a bombed fort,
>>> with gutz hanging out, obviously in mortal agony and soon but
>>> slowly to die, and he pleaded with you to take up his gun and
>>> shoot - what would you do? Turn away and leave him to it and
>>> think what a good Christian or whatever you are?
>>
>>War is an extraordinary circumstance where much that is regarded
>>as immoral in peacetime, is not only moral but necessary.  As such
>>this example quite irrelevant.

>I hardly think so. Some other posting remarked it made a difference
>if the soldier was friend or enemy - what an attitude! 

A practical, truthful attitude from someone who has had to consider
the real world implications of such a decision. Killing and death are
not nice things to think about, the prospect of actually participating
less so. A soldier must decide, firstly about whether he gives a sh*t
about the suffering of someone who was trying to kill him moments
before.  He must consider the personal danger of rendering assistance
(it exposes him to attack, some fatally wounded soldiers like to take
as many of the enemy with them as possible) He must consider the
implications of stopping his own task, exposing comrades to danger, in
order to render assistance to the enemy. All things considered the
difference between a comrade and an enemy in the situation described
is a very real one.

>Another said
>the soldier could be patched up. But I've read of this case. If a
>person is hopelessly mangled all down from the waste, but okay from
>the waste up, there's no hope of patching him up, though he can live
>for a while - in horrible horrible pain and anguish. 

You are misinformed. You would be amazed at the horrific injuries
people can recover from, often leading normal lives with minor inconvenience.
If the residual pain or inconvenience is too much, at least they can decide
for themselves, rationally, whether they wish to commit suicide. 

>  Only the mask of a peculiar religion (and Christianity is peculiar
>in many respects, despite the wisdom of a lot of Jesus's sayings) can
>stop a reasonable person seeing the cruelty and pitilessness of 
>an absolutist attitude to 'life' such as so many of our priests,
>politicians and medical 'experts' are displaying. 

All religions are peculiar to infidels.
Life is an absolute. Either you have it, or you don't.
Why don't you switch your emotive arguments about pain and cruelty to
a call for better education about palliative care if you wish to
alleviate pain and suffering ? The services and level of education about
this are woeful, yet instead of attempting to do something about this
pro-euthanasia activists sweep it under the carpet and advocate killing
people who complain about their suffering.

Lets kill the pain. not the patients.

David Moss,
personal opinion only
http://www.adfa.oz.au/~adm/politics for unbiased Australian Politics
including the euthanasia issue.