Posted on 06/03/2007 7:12:44 AM PDT by pillut48
ping
That is your opinion because you are a Christian. Not everyone is a Christian, nor believes as you do. But I respect your opinion.
Do you support the death penalty? That’s murder too.
Emotional harm comes with the death of a loved one regardless of how or when that death occurs. And everyone dies eventually.
This is also an MS ping.
I said there must be very stringent laws regarding euthanasia. That would include making sure it is the patient’s choice and for valid reasons. I’m not suggesting that anyone and everyone who wants to die gets to kill themselve (although anyone who wants to kill themselves can always find a way if they’re serious about it.) I’m just discussing this topic. I didn’t say I was 100% behind the concept. I just said it’s a matter of personal choice.
The only person who has to convince God is a person who believes in God. There are many religions and many very religious people who are not Christians. Everyone has to make their peace with their own religious beliefs on this matter. It is your right to judge them for their choice, and it is their right to do what is right for them despite what you think. That’s what makes this country great. Right?
Baptist ping
It does hurt others in an indirect way. What "assisted" suicides advocates are really asking for is for the right to kill people who request to be killed. It's legalized killing of willing victims.
The harm to others comes when it's becomes legal for the government to kill willing victims. And make no mistake about it, this is a request for the government to sanction and control the killing of individuals who have committed no crime. In other words, advocates of legalized government killing (assisted suicide) are ceding their right to life TO the government. Then whoever controls the government controls who lives and dies.
This isn't to mention the rampant abuse that will take place by those who want to make money. Death clinics will spring up. Lobbyists for death clinics will work endlessly to relax the rules and regulations.
This isn't a private issue for anyone. It was private when the only one that decided whether we lived or died was ourselves.
The problem with this mindset is that it decreases the economic incentive to develop treatments for these diseases. If this was practiced 100 years ago, how many conditions that can either be attenuated or eliminated and how many lifes that have been enhanced or extended would have simply been ended had the victim been put down like a race horse with a broken leg?
You are contradicting yourself when you say it must be for a 'valid reason' and that it's a matter of 'personal choice.' The concept of a 'valid reason' that you or a judge or society or congress determines can be at odds with a 'personal choice.'
Everyone has to make their peace with their own religious beliefs on this matter. It is your right to judge them for their choice, and it is their right to do what is right for them despite what you think. That’s what makes this country great. Right?
No. Reread your history. This country was founded on Judeo-Chrisian heritage and THAT'S what made this country great, not the anacharistic, anything goes, nobody is right or wrong, mentality.
Your scenario won't work because nothing the government gets it's hands on ever stays the same or works. It ALWAYS gets worse. You're foolish if you really believe that it would work and euthanasia in the likes of Nazi Germany wouldn't result.
Besides, murder is wrong, no matter who's doing the killing and who's being killed. What you're doing id condoning murder and when the moral fiber of a society begins to deteriorate in the devaluing of human life, the society eventually implodes.
The death penalty is for people who have such a callous disregard for human life that the only way to protect society is their removal. It is not considered murder by God, who instituted it.
Oh come on, that’s ridiculous. Humans have an incredible will to live and improve our lives by their very nature. Very few people are going to choose death if there is any quality of life or hope for a pain-free existence remaining for them.
Your comment is plain ol’ fear-mongering.
Reread your history and the Declaration of Independence.
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
They were talking about the Bible's God here. It's His morals and not all morals are equal. If you choose not to believe it, that's your purogative. God doesn't force anyone to believe Him. However, His moral laws are just as real as the physical ones that govern our world and breaking them comes with consequences.
I never said someone was less moral because they believed differently, but a person who breaks God's law is behaving immorally nevertheless. God has established that standard.
Murder is wrong.
> I am just about speechless after reading this. :-O
Like you, I am stunned...
Right - and that hope would not be available if people were being simply put down when they reached a certain age or condition.
A great example of why society saying it's 'ok to die' is Japan where there had been a history of not attempting heart resucitation because you are considered perma-dead when your heart stops. The technology there never would have been available were it not due to the determination to recusitate in other cultures and the sharing of that technology.
You ignored my question - what's wrong with allowing a 19 year old female who just broke up with her boyfriend to commit suicide?
This poor woman was not in physical pain, she was depressed.
Not only so, but we[c] also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
I'd hope a man of god would use this teaching, rather than support suicide.
This suicide woman, Kates, herself was harmed by her own 25-year-old daughter's previous suicide: the article said that was one of her personal tragedies from which she never recovered.
Next up, I predict her widower, her husband, commits suicide. And then her son in Australia.
Suicide comes in clusters: one triggers another. Anyone who commits suicide is like a person wishing to drown, who blows a hole in a levee. You kill yourself, and are complicit in the weakening and collapse of every other vulnerable person in the area who loved you, knew you, had a disease or disability like yours, or even read about you in the newspaper.
I think people fail to understand how much we owe each other in terms of solidarity. Those who kill themselves, create a vacuum which sucks other people into their deaths. And conversely, those who live with fortitude and even with flair, through all difficulties to their last breath, help others to have the spark, the nerve, to go on living.
Dawn53, Rumplemeyer, you have MS and you still make the best of your lives. So it is not just your lives that you save: you are keeping many alive by your example, whether you know it or not: alive in determination to make the most of their years, their days, the time they have been given.
That's one of the reasons that outspoken, tough, even militant organizations of people with disabilities ---organizations like NOT DEAD YET--- are so important. They provide the élan and the "community of mutual courage" upon which all our survival rests.
http://suicideandmentalhealthassociationinternational.org/suiconclust.html
It's estimated here that 10 - 15 % of all youth suicides inthe USA are cluster suicides: teenagers and college-age young people inspiring (or should I say depressing) each other into killing themselves.
"Clusters have been reported among psychiatric inpatients, high school and college students, Native Americans, marine troops, prison inmates and religious sects. My own research found that suicide clusters in the U.S. occur predominantly among teenagers and young adults. Just as occurs in sporadic suicides, behavioral and psychiatric problems make cluster members more susceptible to suicide. "
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