The Right to Die

Discussion in 'Human Rights' started by Buried & Me, Jul 4, 2011.

  1. tomteapack

    tomteapack New Member Past Donor

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    Anyone who truly wishes to die should be allowed to do so in as painfree a manner as possible. Why force someone to blow their brains out or take an overdose that does not kill them but leaves them a vegetable. All die, and being human, we should have the right to decide when and how. There are many things besides disease that might make someone wish to be dead, and those are personal things. Wolves no longer kill the idiots and fools in society, so let them kill themselves if they so desire.
     
  2. dudeman

    dudeman New Member

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    The religiously oppressive society of the USA jailed Jack Kevorkian for devising a somewhat ingenious system for assisted suicide. Face it, it's gonna hurt and you will leave a mess. You can't get the religious nuts out of government sufficiently to evolve to the next level.
     
  3. Makedde

    Makedde New Member Past Donor

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    I have never understood why religious people want to prevent assisted suicide. They are not sick, they are not suffering, yet they want to treat human beings with less compassion than we treat an animal.
     
  4. Sooner28

    Sooner28 New Member

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    It's inexplicable really. If you believe in an afterlife, it seems, logically speaking, that ending someone's "life" (since this life isn't all we have under their view) would be of little importance. You just go to heaven afterwards! However, the fact they hold so dearly to this life, even when it is completely miserable and actually not worth living (such as when someone is just living on pain meds to dull pain, and has little consciousness of anything going on around them) suggests to me that they have severe doubts what really happens when the clock runs out.
     
  5. Sadanie

    Sadanie Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Good point!

    And yet, those same people will, with tears in their eyes, take their aging, disabled dog to the vet to be euthanized!

    You have to admit though that, if there is a heaven, there are probably more dogs there than humans!:)
     
  6. Sooner28

    Sooner28 New Member

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    Yeah that's something else. If an animal is suffering from something and we can do nothing, we take them to the vet and have it done quickly and painlessly. Knock them out, then stop the heart. But with human beings, they must be kept alive through every single painful moment!
     
  7. reqsherry

    reqsherry New Member

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    It's amazing to me that people have more compassion for animals than humans. If an animal has no quality of life, we put them out of their misery, why should it be different for humans?
     
  8. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    Because humans can express a choice. Animals can't. People can say, "I want to die." Dogs can't.

    Euthanasia is libspeak for murder. If I decide to kill myself that's suicide. If I request help then it's an assisted suicide. I support both suicide and assisted suicide.

    Euthanasia is when one person decides that someone else should die. That's called murder.
     
  9. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    Oh look, a flat out lie!

    Assisted suicide IS euthanasia.
     
  10. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    Oh, look, an idiot trying to justify libspeak. If I decide to kill you, am I euthanizing you. I suppose with your tortured libspeak a man can euthanize a family and then be euthanized by the state as punishment for his euthanizing the family. Explain to me, how my shooting you in the head when you just wanted to go on living is a suicide.

    Suicide is a person killing themself because they choose to die.
    Assisted suicide is a person who chooses to die and requests assistance in committing suicide.

    Euthanasia is when a pompous nitwit, like Hitler, decides that someone, or millions, should die. That's it. The person dying has no say it it. Then, he's euthanized. Hitler had defective people euthanized. They needed to go so his minions decided who would die and then euthanized them. They were murdered. The Jews in Dachau did not commit suicide.

    Who is making the decision for the death is the critical distinction between suicide and euthanasia, also called murder. You decide that you should die, it's suicide. You decide that I should die, it's euthanasia or murder.

    Libspeak fails or I should say, in a vain attempt to jusitfy libspeak, the nitwit makes a flat out lie and calls killing someone who doesn't want to die a suicide. We all know that killing someone who doesn't want to die is a murder.
     
  11. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    Euthanasia is the killing of someone to alleviate their suffering.

    How about you stop being so ignorant and actually learn something?
     
  12. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    I sympathize with your suffering, Pqnzer. So, watch out. Some might want to alleviate your suffering. And, any denial that you're suffering can be ignored. By your logic, if I decide you're suffering and I decide to kill you, it's the same as assisted suicide. Now, that's idiotic, Panzer.

    The only ignorant poster on this thread is you. Euthanasia, as in Hitler's Germany, had nothing to do with relieving suffering, did it? I'm sure that like you, the people who killed children with disabilities tried to convince themselves that they weren't murdering the children. They were helping alleviate their suffering. That's called bull(*)(*)(*)(*).

    I know you're desperate to find a nice word for murder but it isn't working.
     
  13. Blasphemer

    Blasphemer Well-Known Member

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    Let me clear up some definitions here:

    Assisted suicide = you kill yourself with assistance from someone else

    Euthanasia = someone else kills you to alleviate your suffering. This can be at your request or consent (voluntary euthanasia), or without it (involuntary euthanasia, never legal).


    Both assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia are human rights in my book, and not a murder.
     
  14. Panzerkampfwagen

    Panzerkampfwagen New Member

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    Strawman arguments aren't a sign of intelligent debate.
     
  15. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    Sorry, you don't understand strawman arguments. Your failure to understand a basic concept like murder has nothing to do with strawman arugments. And don't try to change the subject. Distraction is a tactic of the desperate.

    You decide someone should die withot their consent...it's murder.

    There are affirmative defenses to a charge of murder. Self-defense is an affirmative defense. "He wasn't happy" is not an affirmative defense. In a valid mercy killing, the circumstances might mitigate the penalty but not the guilt.

    Calling it suicide doesn't make it so. Calling it euthanasia makes the word, euthanasia, a euphemism for murder. You can properly call it a mercy killing but, of course, you'll still be prosecuted for murder. Care to guess why? Because it is murder.
     
  16. ian

    ian New Member

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    try not to take such a legal standpoint on this Patrick. My wife and I have already agreed as to the conditions under which we would help end each others life. This after having one of our adult children being placed in a position where she does not not wish to live because severe physical disability. I know what the legal standpoint is but the moral one is different. You must have had a number of colleagues take this way out, I know I have.
     
  17. Blasphemer

    Blasphemer Well-Known Member

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    Separate voluntary (consentual) euthasania from involuntary (unconsentual) euthanasia. Only the latter is murder.

    I am sure noone here is campaigning for legalisation of involuntary euthanasia. When they speak about it, they mean the voluntary one.
     
  18. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    When you're talking about murder, don't assume people mean assisted suicide. If that's what they mean, that's what they should say. I think people who wish to use the term euthanasia are looking for a way to make their decision to kill someone without their consent palatable.

    I was discussing killing babies that had been born as the result of an incompetent abortion and a woman said, "I don't consider that killing." Language is important. It can define thought and ideas.

    If I decide you need to die. It's murder. Quite simple really but there are those who wish to define killing someone, because you think it's in their best interest, as something other than murder.

    I, too, have a living will so my children will not have to make the decisions I had to make concerning my parents. They will have guidance, in black and white, on my wishes. But, I have a friend who talks a lot about how he should be allowed to kill his father because his "quality of life" is poor. When I asked if his father wants to die he said, "Hell, no, and he's spending all of my inheritiance on medical crap." That's this euthansaia argument.

    A new euthanasia case. A nurse arrested and charged with fist degree murder for killing dialysis patients. She is described as a caring person. Let's all hear it for euthansaia.

    http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2012/03/05/texas-nurse-accused-of-killing-patients-with-bleach-ivs/
     
  19. Heroclitus

    Heroclitus Well-Known Member

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    Guess what? If you define what words mean then to you that is what they will mean.

    Why anyone else would be interested in your made-up definitions of words is beyond me. I think the logical conlcusion is that this is an exercise in abusing liberals rather than determining the correct moral response to matters of life and death.
     
  20. Heroclitus

    Heroclitus Well-Known Member

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    This is just drivel isn't it. Shall we take it slowly?

    OK, so you don't think assisted suicide is murder. Most courts of law would agree with you.

    You made this definition of euthanasia up, that it means killing someone without their consent. This is not the definition of anyone of euthanasia. Maybe you think the ancient Greeks - who invented the term meaning good death - were *******s?

    Assisted sucide is voluntary euthanasia;

    Hitler's killing of epileptics was involuntary euthanasia.

    All euthansia involves an assumption by the killer that the killing is an act of mercy. It is what the word means.

    This doesn't mean involuntary euthanasia is not murder, or manslaughter. It is. Who is trying to legalize it? No-one. You are railing against a non existent opponent.

    Ah, now you move to abortion...erm...what's your point?

    Language is important...yes...and of course if you take life from something you are killing it. This is fact not opinion. Killing can be justified or unjustified. It is still killing. So the woman, if you are quoting her correctly, was talking nonsense from any political perspective that you could care to imagine.

    So either the "a woman" that you refer to was an idiot (so it's meaningless for you to quote her) or she didn't say what you say here and said something that was subjective like "I don't consider that murder".

    Language is important. Either its a piece of gobbledegook not worth repeating, or you didn't hear her right. Which?

    Who? Where? Are you talking about Hitler now? You are talking about involuntary euthanasia, which I agree is normally murder (sometimes it is manslaughter if there are extenuating circumstances or the perpetrator is mentally unstable, but always it is illegal and no-one is trying to change this). Who is supporting involuntary euthanasia?

    So your friend wants to murder his father. I think you should report him to the police. There is nothing "liberal" about this. That is just cheap abuse. Instead of abusing liberals by falsifying their arguments, report your friend to the authorities.

    Are you serious? Firstly it is no sort of euthanasia, because it was not done from any motives of "mercy". The patients died in pain. Secondly she is charged with first degree murder, so what's the problem? Thirdly she is described as a caring person by her defence attorney as she is denying doing anything. That's what defence layers are supposed to say.

    Arguing that your client is innocent and of good character isn't arguing that the crime is justified.

    Arguing that someone who committed a crime is of previous good character isn't arguing that the crime is justified.

    That's what defence lawyers do. They defend the accused. And rightly so.

    This is simple stuff, isn't it?

    This isn't some "liberal" justification of anything. This is just garbage isn't it? No-one is arguing that she is justified in killing dialysis patients. No one is supporting murder. No-one is supporting involuntary euthanasia. What on earth are you railing at? Liberal demons in the smoke?
     
  21. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    Of course, going back to the Greek is so enlightening.

    So, according to you, and the ancient Greeks, if I kill Stephen Hawkin because I've decide that with his miserable physical diabilities his life isn't worth living and I kill him mercifully, say with gas, then it's euthanasia because the critical key is whether or not I, in deciding to kill, am being merciful. His wishes are irrelevant. Right?
     
  22. ryanm34

    ryanm34 New Member

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    It is involuntary euthanasia. Which is murder. It is still a form of euthanasia. No one is arguing that involuntary euthanasia should be legalised.
     
  23. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    when we talk of euthanasia without qualifiers such as you used we are indeed talking about legalizing...euthanasia. Why else would be avoid perfectly appropriate, and quite clear, terms that already exist such as assisted suicide? Assisted suicide is as a term more more clear than voluntary euthanasia. Who voluteers? The killer? Clarity in killing is important.
     
  24. ryanm34

    ryanm34 New Member

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    I will not be held responsible for the poor word choice of other debaters. Ask people who argue for the legalisation of euthanasia "Do they think that those who wish to live should be killed against their wishes?" and the overwhelming repsonse will be, I should hope, no.


    Assisted suicide implies helping someone to end there own life ie. giving them a prescription or handing them a tablet. Rather than ending their life for them with their consent.

    It also covers tying the noose and kicking the stool for a mentally ill person rather than attempting to get them the psychiatric care they need. And I am not in favour of legalising that.
     
  25. ryanm34

    ryanm34 New Member

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    By the way to clarify, I don't think you are arguing for legalisation of assisted suicide in the case of the last point.

    But it is highly disingenuous to argue that those who support relaxing restrictions on voluntary euthanasia are looking for the ability to end other peoples lives without their consent.
     

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