"A shark on whiskey is mighty risky, but a shark on beer is a beer engineer" - Tad Ghostal
Go ask the Insurances Industry.....dead set against it. It makes life a whole lot more difficult for them.
As it stands, anyone who for whatever reason ,takes their own life or is in cahoots with someone to assist them dying , forfeits any life insurance or pensions.
A real can of morals & ethics right there.
Easy to deal with if you restrict euthanasia to those with terminal illness only - as far as the insurance company is concerned they were about to die anyway. Trickier if you expand it beyond that.
Another thing to take in to account... a massive percentage of healthcare spending is on the final few months of life (supportive care when someone is terminal). Every day someone is not dying slowly in pain is probably thousands or tens of thousands saved to be spent on someone with a chance of recovery. Sounds harsh but it's true.
Library Schooled
Not true. I took out a life insurance policy decades back and the seller pointed out the clause covering self killing - off the top of my head there was a 12 month no pay clause - after that I was good to crack out the tie and chair. The underlying theory was if you were taking a policy to leave funds to loved ones after you topped yourself, after a year chances are (and insurance is all about chances) you would have changed your mind and they would have decades of premiums before having to cash you out.
True story from the archives of Mr B.
Katman believes in Euthanasia as he said he had previously had to put down his cat or Dog.
He also said it was horrible to watch as his father suffered (which no one could deny would have been traumatic to witness as it is for many other people to watch a loved one suffer with no reason to prolong suffering or any treatment available.)
Although he believes in the use of the same drugs that are used on a human or a cat or dog to end their life humanely.
Those same drugs become oddly enough, cruel and barbaric and painful, when used for the lethal injection of people sentenced to death.
Horses for courses...........Or a dollar both ways.
Katman you've got it the wrong way around. Your comprehension is fine.
The problem is that the anti-suicide zealots don't give a flying nut about the arguments in favor.
They'll swear it isn't true, but they would rather you left your car running in an airtight garage, having told none of your family, than a quiet injection following some final farewells. That is the result of an argument which makes one form of suicide illegal, and the other not. Unless they have some bright idea about prosecuting people for unassisted suicides.
We are forcing law-abiding citizens to choose between an undignified end (causing their families more emotional suffering); criminalising their families/doctors/friends, or wasting away.
The thing that fucked me off the most about the recent media article was this:
'A Crown lawyer, Paul Rishworth, QC, said Seales had the option of palliative care, and the evidence was that would deal effectively with her pain but might mean being sedated.'
Or, 'we would rather you rot in a pile of your own shit, bereft of anything except numbness and delirium.'
"It's hard to keep an open mind, when so many people are trying to put things in it"
If we treated our pets how we treat our terminally ill family members, we would be before the courts for animal cruelty.
Political Correctness, the chief weapon of whiney arse bastards
" Rule books are for the Guidance of the Wise, and the Obedience of Fools"
I don't know any doctors who believe that the Hippocratic oath overrides the rights of people to choose the time of their death. People remain free to choose the time of their death.
On the other hand, people who expect the medical profession to facilitate euthanasia seem to expect that their desire to have us actively assist them in timing and causing their death, overrides our right to choose not to participate in something we believe is against our professional principles.
If you force me to do something against my code of practice I'm not your physician, I am your slave.
Furthermore, you're probably already familiar with the slippery slope argument. The slippery slope is real. Consider just a few vignettes from the world of enthusiastic euthanasia...
In the Netherlands - increase in euthanasia cases per year since 2006 from 1,923 to 4,188. The 2012 figures included 42 with early dementia and 13 with psychiatric conditions. That'd be 55 people minimum who could not make an informed choice. In 2001 about 5.6% of all deaths in the Netherlands were related to deep-continuous sedation. This rose to 8.2% in 2005 and 12.3% in 2010. A significant proportion of these deaths involve doctors deeply sedating patients and then withholding fluids with the explicit intention that they will die.
In Belgium - a 500% increase in euthanasia deaths between 2003 and 2012. High profile cases include Mark and Eddy Verbessem, 45-year-old deaf identical twins, who were euthanised by the Belgian state, after their eyesight began to fail; then there is Nathan/Nancy Verhelst, whose life was ended in front of TV cameras, after a series of botched sex-change operations. His mother said she hated girls, found her child 'so ugly' at birth and did not mourn his death. And then there is Ann G, who had anorexia and who opted to have her life ended after being sexually abused by the psychiatrist who was supposed to be treating her for the life-threatening condition.
In Switzerland - a 700% rise in cases (from 43 to 297) from 1998 to 2009. Amongst those travelling from abroad to end their lives at the so-called Dignitas* facility have been many people who "could not by any stretch be described as terminally ill". * Dignitas has attracted much criticism in recent years over accounts of discarded cremation urns dumped in Lake Zurich, reports of body bags in residential lifts, suicides being carried out in car parks, the selling of the personal effects of deceased victims and profiteering with fees approaching £8,000 per death.
In US (Oregon) - a 350% increase assisted in suicide deaths since legalisation including the notable cases of two people with cancer who were told that the Oregon Health Authority would not pay for their chemotherapy but would happily pay for their assisted suicide – which was of course much cheaper.
Pain and suffering are givens in this world and as humans we like to feel we are in control of our lives and destinies, including over pain and suffering.
I can't help but wonder how many of those who want the right to have someone assist them with death due to terminal illness are truly prepared to do the deed themselves while they're still mentally and physically able to do so. It's like they want the 'benefit' of hanging in there as long as possible but having the 'back up' of some one else doing the deed once they get past the point of not being able to do it themselves.
Don't get me wrong, I feel enormous compassion for those who are suffering through no fault of their own and know full well that it can come unexpectedly to any of us. However this has been the human condition for millennia so what is really surprising about it? Is our own suffering any more or less important or meaningful than anyone else's?
I know it will sound callous but if those who want the right to choose the time of their own death aren't prepared to take matters into their own hands before the need to rely on someone else to do it where is their level of conviction?
Discuss.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Bookmarks