🚀 go-pugleaf

Peter Merel <pete@zip.com.au> wrote:

>d-moss@adfa.oz.au (David Moss) writes:

>Okay, chalk that one up to basic human selfishness, but don't we kill
>our pets because they're too much trouble? Well, I can't speak for
>folks around David's neighbourhood, but no, no one I know has ever 
>killed a _pet_ to "save trouble". 

You obviously lack life experience Peter. Not everyone is "nice".
Ask the RSPCA how many animals they "put down" at holiday time.
My 12 year old daughter did a school project on dogs last year. She
emulates my research methods, and thanks to the marvels of data
storage I can tell you 750  unwanted dogs passed through the
Queanbeyan City Pound in 1995, of which 500 were destroyed.
(The rest were recycled to new owners) Queanbeyan Pound has
recieving cages open to the public 24 hours a day in an effort to curb
"dumping".

It grieves me to think that someone naive enough to think large
numbers of people do not have unwanted pets euthanised argues that RTI
will not be misused from the same naivety.

To quote a human example in anticipation of your challenge:

"A middle-aged man requested euthanasia for his elderly, dying father
so he could bury his dad before going on holiday. That kind of request
is easily made, and granted, once a country opens the door to
euthanasia, ... Dr. Karel Gunning ... said acolleague told him about
receiving this request and trying to oblige the son by giving the
father a huge dose of morphine. It failed to kill the sick man, who
was found sitting up happily in bed that evening. Gunning said the
episode "just shows you the mentality" in the Netherlands ....
[Pitfalls of euthanasia cited, Ailing father death target, by Rebecca
Wigod, Vancouver Sun, 4.10.94: B1.]"

If you are not convinced by now, Peter,  you are beyond the reach of
reasonable persuasion. 

>>When you devalue a human life by permitting people to be "put down"
>>because we "treat dogs better",  you lubricate the top step of the
>>dreaded "slippery slope". 

>You speak as if "the slippery slope" were more than a fallacy. No one so
>far has introduced a single piece of historical data to lend real support 
>to this argument.

9% of deaths in the Netherlands are now due to euthanasia.

Although you will undoubtably "call foul" I evoke the T4 programme
in Nazi Germany as a historical example of out of control euthanasia.
(Even NAZI leaders tried unsuccessfully to stop it) To read a little
of the horror of the T4 programme see:
http://octarine.cc.adfa.oz.au/~dmoss/living/resource/nazit4.txt

> If you really think that chalk can spontaneously turn to
>cheese, let's have some kind of realistic scenario in which it can: start
>with the RTI laws and show how you expect them to degrade, and justify 
>each degradation by considering popular support and popular opposition to it.
>If you can't explain how you think this could happen, you can't expect us to
>consider it more than a macabre fantasy.

Elsewhere in this newsgroup I have indicated the first step on the
slippery slope will be legalised euthanasia of mentally incompetent
patients who indicate their wishes before mental deterioration takes
place, perhaps even in writing. Find it, and refute it if you can.

>>If they wish to commit suicide, thats their choice.
>>If they want someone else to kill them, thats society's choice.

>Then you support physician-assisted suicide? 

No. Why do you suppose I follow these threads ?

>I seem to recall that you
>don't.  Frankly, I don't see why any victimless crime should be
>society's concern, and this seems to be a thoroughly victimless crime:
>the dying person benefits by determining their own fate, and the
>assistant benefits by the exercise of their compassion. Why should
>society then concern itself?

Killing another person is not victimless on account of willingness by
the victim, except in the NT when carried out in accordance with the
RTI Act. 

>>My research into the euthansasia issue has taught me that in almost
>>every case where a terminally ill person in pain has requested
>>physician assisted suicide, he/she has withdrawn the request as soon
>>as proper pain management was effected.

>Figures please, David - I recall your thinking that a few gun-nut emails
>were statistically significant on that issue - let's have the results of
>any formal poll that backs your contention here, not handwaving.

From the talarian guide:
"Clinicians in a pain clinic report seeing many patients who
considered suicide who changed their minds once given adequate
pain relief (Foley, 1991)." (Doctor Kathleen Foley is Chief of Pain
Services at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York)

To quote Dr Foley from this reference:
"We frequently see patients referred to our Pain Clinic who request
physician-assisted suicide because of uncontrolled pain. We commonly
see such ideation and requests dissolve with adequate control of pain
and other symptoms, using combinations of pharmacologic,
neurosurgical, anesthetic, or psychological approaches."

". According to a 1992 manual produced by the Washing ton Medical
Association, Pain Management and Care of the Terminal Patient,
"adequate  interventions exist to control pain in 90 to 99% of
patients.""

Oh yes, and speaking of odd statistics, of the hundreds of letters,
phone calls and faxes he recieved before the lower house vote, 90%
were  anti-euthanasia according to one MP I interviewed recently.
He noted they were _not_ part of an orchestrated campaign, which is
fairly easy to pick out. Figure that one out.

>Also, please explain why the choice of one dying person should be
>impressed on some other dying person who does not share their beliefs
>and experiences.

As I said, anyone has the right to choose their own time of death.
They do not have the right to have someone else participate in causing
it. 

>Also, please explain why the right to suicide, which you agree is enjoyed
>by the healthy, should be taken from those few people who have a rational
>desire to avail themselves of it.

I suspect you mean people unable to carry out their wish to commit
suicide. Easy: because if someone else is involved it is not suicide !

>>We often hear this "relatives in agony for months" saga from the
>>pro-euthanasia camp. Much better they take their bloodthirsty thumb
>>off the "green needle" plunger and hand the pain management job over
>>to someone who cares about a person rather than an agenda.

>40% of the dying experience severe, unmanageable pain on a regular basis.
>When they're not experiencing this pain, this 40% are generally doped to
>the eyeballs: their existence is a cycle of agony and unconsciousness.

From "On Pain and Living - Chapter 8, Myths About Cancer Pain "
by David Cundiff, MD:

"Myth #4-- "Totally relieving cancer pain produces doped zombies
unable to think clearly or function normally."

Although patients may become unusually sleepy for two or three days
after beginning appropriate doses of oral morphine, they soon return
to being alert and mentally sharp. The morphine causes some of the
sleepiness. However, sleep deprivation because of the pain itself is
the most important factor. "

>If you care about a person, you respect their choices; if your don't
>respect their choices, you don't care. What you're promoting is the
>institutionalized torture of those for whom pain management is a joke.

>Reread Dent's and Mills's accounts of their suffering, and then explain
>why we should not respect their choices.

Number one obvious answer: because both Dent and Mills were capable of
ending their lives lawfully without using the RTI Act. Why do you
suppose articulate, visually evocative patients were chosen as the
test pilots for "Deadly Deliverance"?

Kevorkian in the USA ensured  good publicity for his "test pilot" as
illustrated by the following quote from International Anti-Euthanasia
Task Force's "The Real Jack Kevorkian" at
http://www.iaetf.org/fctkev.htm :

"One rejected "patient" was a woman with multiple sclerosis who, he
explained, was "not a suitable candidate for the first use of the
Mercitron [Kevorkian's death machine]" because her situation wouldn't
garner the favorable coverage he needed for the "initial event." (6)"

To round off I looked up "euthanasia" in the "Helping People Cope"
dictionary at OncoLink, University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center.
(http://oncolink.upenn.edu/psychosocial/cope/glossary.html) 
It wasn't listed.






David Moss,
personal opinion only.
try http://www.adfa.oz.au/~adm/politics for Australian Politics