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I don't doubt that you don't - many people will go to great and contradictory and morally bankrupt lengths to divest themselves of any sense of guilt or responsibility. Unfortunately, individuals "exercis[ing] their right" to do X sometimes reflects poorly on a society in general and leads to other issues in which individual rights are negated. An example would be ritualistic suicide in Japan. Another would be polygamy. Was it you who stated that "things change"? What makes you think that the very strict criteria won't begin to broaden? How do you know that in 50 or 100 it won't result in a Logan's Run kind of society where anyone who is undesireable is eliminated? An issue such as this should not have been left to the so-called supreme court. It is one of the few issues in recent decades that truly should be put to a referendum.
Okie dokie; many people being morally bankrupt because they do not agree with your particular viewpoint is another accusatory method of assigning guilt where there should be none. You jump right past the salient point of individual rights being expanded upon to your narrow projection of them being taken away by the state. That's a fallacy.
This Supreme Court ruling seems to be difficult for you to accept when all it actually does is state that the wording in existing laws prohibiting assisted suicide are contrary to our charter and constitution.
A mandate exists for the government to craft a new piece of legislation within a year that will either satisfy the constitutional test for prevention, or will very carefully lay out those stipulations by which individuals may opt for an assisted suicide death with dignity.
All of this Logan's Run jiggery-pokery is just hyperbole on your part to justify a less than reasonable stance that, simply put, smacks of the Salem witch hunts era.
Here's a thought for consideration; not so very long ago religions of all stripes prohibited actually visible displaying you were enjoying your life. No dancing no drinking no visible mirth of any kind allowed and they all used the very same precept you are using here ~ FEAR! "Humans cannot be trusted to behave in a moral and ethical fashion if given an inch, they will in all cases, without a doubt, take that proverbial mile." Hogwash!
Can you not be wrong? Cannot the human race on occasion get it right? Have they not demonstrated that to any critical analysis in any number of cases?
Regardless of the expression of one's faith, are we not all part of the collective conscience of humankind and therefore responsible for the sufferings of our fellow humans?
Think of Terry Schiavo.
From what I've read above, many of you would see her predicament - 'forced assisted suicide' they called it - as none of your business, when it was, in fact, murder. Terry didn't want to die but her estranged husband wanted to withhold food and water from her (she couldn't feed herself) until she starved to death.
The Pope intervened - five times.
I intervened (for months) - even contacting Jed Bush about the matter.
Many thousands of people intervened on her behalf, but the government ruled that she had no rights, although she clearly expressed a strong will to live and dissolved into tears when she heard the 'verdict,' because she required help to live, and that fell within her HUSBAND'S purview. This is a man who had already abandoned his wife and taken up with another woman at the time, and yet still he was allowed to ORDER THE DEATH of Terry Schiavo - against her will, against the will of her parents, friends, and thousands of concerned petitioners, such as I.
They (the government) murdered Terry Schiavo and they can do the same to you and I. Since this precedent, tens of thousands of people have been euthanized (murdered) against their will, and they've called it 'assisted suicide.'
In light of the above, even if only for selfish reasons (which seem to abound on this forum), one would think that one would vote against any regulation that can deprive anyone of life, liberty, and happiness.
We have opinions galore on this thread (and on others like it elsewhere on this forum) about what should and should not be legislated into being. People who vote for 'the right to die with dignity' clearly don't understand the system. It's perfectly possible to 'die with dignity' without further legislation, but those of you who are unaware of how easily such laws can and have been manipulated already, had better be SURE that you won't be the one dying an excruciatingly painful death at the will and whim of another.
Food for thought.
Mahrie.
P.S. I'm curious, since it's relevant - did any of you bother to read the excerpt from The Gathering Dark (my latest novel) in this thread? As a missionary, I was accused of having a particular agenda, even though I had made no comment on the matter, and I posted the excerpt (in response) to show how each of us CAN 'control' the manner in which we exit the temporal realm - regardless of whether one is an atheist or a missionary.
We need no further legislation. What we need is education and the freedom to have our wishes respected, and we don't have that today. If in doubt, think of Terry Schiavo and the tens of thousands like her.
With all due respect Mahrie, I believe you are inserting your assumptions into the mix in ways that do many a disservice.
You cannot for one second know for sure what Terry Schiavo's wishes were as that is the very nature of the entire boondoggle surrounding her terrible ordeal. Her "estranged" husband had legal rights that were offset by all sorts of religious and anecdotal "feelings" from a variety of sources including her parents.
It is certainly not uncommon for parents to put their natural tendency of not wishing to be party or spectators in the death of their children while totally ignoring whatever "feelings" they might have known their children would have regarding the topic.
Have you ever had a conversation with even one individual who would have suggested to you they would have wished for a continuance of their life if it resembled anything like that of Terry's?
No one wishes to die if they are healthy and in reasonable possession of all their faculties but given the terrible conditions of 'maintenance of life at all costs' imposed upon the medical profession, which would ultimately equate to "torture" under any other contextual basis, and you have a recipe for humans being denied the very right they should have under our charter; to live their life as they desire within reason and also to die as they desire within reason.
Those "within reason" restrictions are what a caring and compassionate society craft as a set of conditions they collectively agree upon after all due considerations are given to arguments such as yours and many, many, others who are consulted for opinion, including the medical community.
Do you not see the contradiction in your own position with this statement of yours intended to give pause to others: "had better be SURE that you won't be the one dying an excruciatingly painful death at the will and whim of another." How do you see your unsolicited influence being anything more than the "will or whim of another" condemning someone to die an excruciatingly painful death?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but your claim that you intervened along with thousands of others with no more currency or right to do so other than your 'opinion' regarding her thoughts and wishes, when you could have had no way on earth to know what her thoughts and wishes were at the time, would have me coming back from the grave to haunt you for the rest of your natural days should you make any attempts to do likewise were I in Terry's shoes and you attempted to intervene on your own behalf rather than mine..
P.S. I'm curious, since it's relevant - did any of you bother to read the excerpt from The Gathering Dark (my latest novel) in this thread?
Solid Block O' Text (especially dialog) is too hard on the eyes, so I skipped it.
I know. I tried to reformat it but it was difficult enough to copy and paste it from my external hardrive onto this computer. Sorry about that.
Blessings,
Mahrie.
P.S. BruSan - I'll talk to you later. I have to go to sleep now. I saw dozens of videos of Terry and she left no doubt as to how she felt. As I said, I'll talk to you later - God Willing.
I'm curious, since it's relevant - did any of you bother to read the excerpt from The Gathering Dark (my latest novel) in this thread? As a missionary, I was accused of having a particular agenda, even though I had made no comment on the matter, and I posted the excerpt (in response) to show how each of us CAN 'control' the manner in which we exit the temporal realm - regardless of whether one is an atheist or a missionary.
We need no further legislation. What we need is education and the freedom to have our wishes respected, and we don't have that today. If in doubt, think of Terry Schiavo and the tens of thousands like her.
I read it. I admit I hate reading lengthy "conversations" between people, but I did read it.
I wasn't happy with it. I was rather annoyed actually because it was all about what "other people" wanted and about their own personal concerns and it left me hanging not knowing what Rachel wanted. The excerpt wasn't about what Rachel wanted (which is what death with dignity is about in the court decision and in this topic) and as far as I was concerned Rachel was the only person whose wishes mattered to me. I never did find out what Rachel's wishes were on the matter.
So what did Rachel want? Did she want to suffer a protracted, painful and undignified death while being given gifts and fed comfort foods like chocolate and milk-based IV by "other people" who were doing what they thought was best for Rachel's own good ...... or did she want assistance to die quickly, comfortably and with dignity by her own request? That is the only thing I want to know. What did Rachel want?
I read it. I admit I hate reading lengthy "conversations" between people, but I did read it.
I wasn't happy with it. I was rather annoyed actually because it was all about what "other people" wanted and about their own personal concerns and it left me hanging not knowing what Rachel wanted. The excerpt wasn't about what Rachel wanted (which is what death with dignity is about in the court decision and in this topic) and as far as I was concerned Rachel was the only person whose wishes mattered to me. I never did find out what Rachel's wishes were on the matter.
So what did Rachel want? Did she want to suffer a protracted, painful and undignified death while being given gifts and fed comfort foods like chocolate and milk-based IV by "other people" who were doing what they thought was best for Rachel's own good ...... or did she want assistance to die quickly, comfortably and with dignity by her own request? That is the only thing I want to know. What did Rachel want?
.
What Rachel wanted was respected, as far as it could be, which you'll see if you read the novel in context. It's not due out (publication date) until July, but if you'd like a promo e-copy, I'll send one to you. I still have a few that I'm allowed to share gratis. PM me if you'd like the whole story.
Sorry about the font and format here on CD; the book doesn't look anything like that.
Thanks. I'll look for the book when it gets published.
.
You're welcome.
My novels aren't sold in stores though. My readership base is privately informed when a new novel (or CD or DVD) is soon to be published, and TV talk shows, the Net, our concerts/tours, churches, humanitarian aid groups, and big city newspapers take care of the rest. I don't care for either business or marketing; I just write the stories and songs and show up where I'm supposed to.
I agree with the idea of assisted suicide. The question is, in a democracy, who should make that decision, an elected Parliament/Congress or a Court composed of appointed judges? I find judicial legislation to be scary.
What makes a decision activist, then, is not merely that it results in this or that law passed by a democratic Parliament being overturned, but whether it does so in accordance with Parliaments own previously expressed wishes: that is, whether the grounds for the decision can in fact be found in a sensible reading of the Constitution, or whether the court made it up. Even allowing for some difference of opinion over what is reasonable, it is clear that not every such reading can be defended, as it is sometimes clear that no reading was even tried.
While I personally favor assisted suicide, and I feel strongly on the issue, a court should not be the ones delineating overall meets and bounds. The Court should not, in effect, be saying "this is the kind of nation (or world) we want and then creating it by judicial decree. The kinds of lines drawn in the decision really belong to Parliament. The Court, implicitly recognizing this, stayed the decision for one year in order to give Parliament time to write legislation. The gesture is an empty one, since if the law doesn't meet the SCOC's diktat it will simply strike down that law.
Other decisions evince similar activism. Laws that plainly truncate free speech are upheld since the Court likes the result of being able to corral "hate speech." The rights of First Nations go well beyond any possible defensible text of Parliamentary laws, the British North America Act, the Charter or other elements of the constitution.
In the U.S. it's no different. The Supreme Court, in the early 1900's struck down laws against child labor, and minimum wage laws, based on its social and economic view. It was rightly castigated for this in the famous United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 (1938), fn. 4 (link)for making policy, other than to protect minority rights, stating:
"There may be narrower scope for operation of the presumption of constitutionality when legislation appears on its face to be within a specific prohibition of the Constitution, such as those of the first ten amendments, which are deemed equally specific when held to be embraced within the Fourteenth.
After a salutory period where the U.S. Supreme Court confined itself to the protection of peoples who couldn't protect themselves using the democratic process, it returned to the area with Roe v. Wade. With scant textual support it struck down almost all abortion laws. Personally I am pro-choice. Some states such as New York and California already legalized abortion. To have that imposed by Court order was wrong. Similarly, in the other ideological direction the Supreme Court imposed "corporate free speech" in the Citizens United decision. Corporations exist only by the grace of each state's legislatures and I don't see any text in the Constitution giving them equal rights to me, who is typing away with "ten fingers."
In short, I do not believe that the Supreme Courts of either of our lands should be legislating. They should be protecting peoples' rights against the tyranny of the majority, but not sculpting society.
Last edited by jbgusa; 02-15-2015 at 10:41 PM..
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