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Women's sacrifices, taken to the extreme (Euthanasia)
Baltimore Sun ^ | 12/16/07 | Susan Reimer

Posted on 12/16/2007 1:06:27 PM PST by wagglebee

Christopher Buckley's dark satire Boomsday imagines a Social Security crisis that pits the generations against each other, and a public relations campaign to persuade older Americans to do the "right" thing and check out early. There are even financial incentives and free Botox if you schedule your suicide.

But what if, in such a world, it were the women - the always dutiful women - who felt the pull of responsibility most strongly and signed up first?

That is exactly what Susan Wolf, a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota and an opponent of physician-assisted suicide, fears.

Wolf made her case in a recent The New York Times Magazine article written by Daniel Bergner about the efforts of former Washington Gov. Booth Gardner to pass a physician-assisted suicide law like the one on the books in Oregon.

Women are caretakers of children, parents and husbands, she argued. Aren't they more likely to want to avoid being a burden themselves when they become old or very sick?

Wolf also said women are more likely to acquiesce to the authority of a doctor, who is most often a man.

If assisted suicide were one of the options the doctor presented, as he would be obliged to do if it were legal, wouldn't a woman be unduly influenced toward that choice?

In Bergner's article, Wolf also talked about the literary and cultural traditions of suicides by women, going back to Sophocles' Antigone and Shakespeare's Ophelia.

Wolf was unavailable to elaborate on her theory of the particular vulnerability of women in a society that permits physician-assisted suicide. Her office at Minnesota said she was dealing with a health crisis involving her mother.

But something about this point of view didn't sit right with me, particularly because statistics from the first decade of the Oregon law show that assisted suicides have been split pretty evenly between men and women.

So I pursued it with Dr. Peter Terry, a professor of medicine in pulmonary and critical care at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a member of Hopkins' Berman Bioethics Institute.

"The Oregon statistics don't on the surface suggest that there will be a propensity of overinvolvement by women," he said.

And, he said, "There are relatively good sociologic studies that suggest that women tend to have larger support groups as they age than men.

"The effect of the support group might counter any propensity."

Exactly, I thought. My girlfriends would never let me check out, and they'd make sure I was cared for.

It also occurred to me that, while my mother's generation might have been vulnerable to a suggestion that once her care-giving days were over, she was expendable, I doubt that this generation of women would think that way.

We are the boomers, after all. We think we are the center of the universe.

"I think that is a good point," said Terry, laughing slightly.

Wolf did not limit her fears of vulnerability to women. She expressed concerns for minorities, too. On that point, Terry agrees, and it is fundamental to his opposition to physician-assisted suicide.

"The health care system that we have does not provide equal opportunity to all. The poor and those who aren't able to afford comfortable end-of-life care, because they are suffering, might choose this."

However, Dr. Thomas Finucane, who specializes in geriatrics at Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, agrees with Wolf.

"I think women are more vulnerable," said Finucane, who also is a member of the Berman institute. "Elderly women are more likely to acquiesce to the suggestions of men wearing the cloak of respectability."

And the mere availability of assisted suicide as a medical option, Finucane said, would "poison every single conversation a doc has."

Besides, he said, suicidal thoughts are a function of depression. That means you treat the depression. You don't write a script for a deadly cocktail.

"In both genders, there is strong evidence to suggest that if you are considering suicide, you have major depression, and that's true even if you have advanced cancer."

In his 25 years as a geriatric physician, Finucane said, only one patient has asked that death be expedited.

"And that was a man."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cultureofdeath; euthanasia; moralabsolutes; prolife; worldgonemad
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To: wagglebee

As an aside to the euthanasia debate, let me present the horror as it exists today.

Institutional corridors full of aged, mostly mentally incapacitated women in wheelchairs, staring blankly at the painted brick wall opposite them, or sleeping. This is what exists today.

This is NOT to say that euthanasia does anything more than murder such women. Just that we desperately need something better than what we have, not to just argue whether a living death is better than a real death.

Isn’t there something better we can do?

Neither of those alternatives is acceptable. Both of them are so awful it would be worth it to run away while you still could, just so you won’t be trapped in that hideous either-or proposition. Either living death or euthanasia.

That is an intolerable choice.


21 posted on 12/16/2007 1:45:01 PM PST by Popocatapetl
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To: Oratam

I fear that you are quite possibly correct. It should also be noted that there is one huge reason for the financial issues that the nation is facing as the Baby Boomers age and that is ABORTION.

When the most selfish generation in the history of mankind made the decision to kill 50 MILLION children, they created a serious crisis for Ponzi schemes like Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.


22 posted on 12/16/2007 1:45:44 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Oratam

Experience shows that the people demanding legalized euthanasia aren’t the same people it’s used on.


23 posted on 12/16/2007 1:47:19 PM PST by BykrBayb (In memory of my Friend T'wit, who taught me much. ~ Þ)
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To: Popocatapetl

The problem is selfishness in society that has allowed people to become indifferent to the fate of their elderly parents, grandparents and relatives.


24 posted on 12/16/2007 1:47:47 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee
I firmly believe that euthanasia should remain illegal.

However, there is a reason that no physician has ever been convicted of a crime for administering narcotics or barbiturates to a person in the agonal stage of the end-of-life process.

wagglebee, do you understand why that is, and are you content with it?

25 posted on 12/16/2007 1:48:24 PM PST by Jim Noble (Trails of trouble, roads of battle, paths of victory we shall walk.)
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To: Oratam

From what I’ve seen, there’s a lot of talk out of some who are younger than the boomers to lower the level of medical care for elderly boomers to help us along our way.


26 posted on 12/16/2007 1:50:10 PM PST by GoLightly
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To: JimSEA

There aren’t even enough pain pills given out today. And lack of pain pills may hasten acceptances of euthenasia. If anything, pain management will consist of a referral to a meditation guru and a packet of suicide pills.


27 posted on 12/16/2007 1:51:54 PM PST by tbw2 (Science fiction with real science - "Humanity's Edge" - on amazon.com)
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To: utherdoul
As far as I can determine, in the current thinking, it would be the decision of the state to determine whose life was "worth living."

This determination would be made by people exercising the same intellectual integrity shown by employees of the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

But beyond this, how is it that the government is determined to be the arbiter of this issue at all?

Only a socialist (communist on training wheels) would even presume that the government had any role at all in the issue (their point: because "we're all paying for it.")

Collectivism is the most profound present-day evil imaginable.

28 posted on 12/16/2007 1:52:55 PM PST by Madame Dufarge
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To: wagglebee
In Bergner's article, Wolf also talked about the literary and cultural traditions of suicides by women, going back to Sophocles' Antigone and Shakespeare's Ophelia.

does it say anywhere here that, though girls may try to "commit suicide" more often, boys are more successful? that statistically males are more likely to actually complete the act than females?

this is, once again, the same ole pity party for females.

29 posted on 12/16/2007 1:53:11 PM PST by wildwood
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To: wagglebee
When the most selfish generation in the history of mankind made the decision to kill 50 MILLION children, they created a serious crisis for Ponzi schemes like Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.

Think all 50 million abortions are to be laid on the doorstep of boomers? How many boomers were on the court that gave us Roe? Know which current members of SCOTUS are boomers?

30 posted on 12/16/2007 1:56:46 PM PST by GoLightly
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To: wildwood

Once the gals get help from doctors, you think their “success” rate won’t go up?


31 posted on 12/16/2007 1:58:47 PM PST by GoLightly
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To: wagglebee
World to end in 30 minutes. Women and minorities hardest hit.

Wolf did not limit her fears of vulnerability to women. She expressed concerns for minorities, too.

32 posted on 12/16/2007 2:04:26 PM PST by DManA
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To: GoLightly

I’m not talking about the leftist judges who allowed it, I’m talking about the selfish women who had the abortions.


33 posted on 12/16/2007 2:08:43 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Jim Noble
However, there is a reason that no physician has ever been convicted of a crime for administering narcotics or barbiturates to a person in the agonal stage of the end-of-life process.

And I think that this comes down to intent, do the doctors intend to relieve pain or cause death? There is a great deal of difference.

34 posted on 12/16/2007 2:10:31 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

However, the culture of death sees euthanasia as a “duty”.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^6

The right to control one’s reproduction has become a **duty**. Just ask any woman about the looks and comments she receives when in a supermarket line with 3, 4 or more children.


35 posted on 12/16/2007 2:14:55 PM PST by wintertime (Good ideas win! Why? Because people are not stupid.)
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To: wagglebee

However, the culture of death sees euthanasia as a "duty".

Just like Islam and suicide bombings. Scary.
36 posted on 12/16/2007 2:15:42 PM PST by G8 Diplomat (Creatures are divided into 6 kingdoms: Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Monera, Protista, & Saudi Arabia)
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To: wagglebee

Physician-assisted suicide

Women and children hardest hit


37 posted on 12/16/2007 2:17:54 PM PST by HangnJudge
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To: wintertime

Good point.


38 posted on 12/16/2007 2:18:07 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee
I’m not talking about the leftist judges who allowed it, I’m talking about the selfish women who had the abortions.

If you think the only women that have ever had them were boomers, then by all means, lay all of the abortions on the doorstep of the boomers.

39 posted on 12/16/2007 2:21:42 PM PST by GoLightly
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To: wagglebee
There is a great deal of difference

Most of the time, yes. Not always.

Double effect is great for college bull sessions and ethics manuals.

Sometimes (and it's rare), the morphine puts an end to an intolerable situation.

I think the compromise of criminal liability with a jury as fact-finder has worked out quite well, and shouldn't be changed.

40 posted on 12/16/2007 2:22:24 PM PST by Jim Noble (Trails of trouble, roads of battle, paths of victory we shall walk.)
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