Massachusetts voters facing right-to-die showdown

Patriot Ledger ^ | 8/20/11 | Chris Burrell

[EternalVigilance]

"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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."

in·alien·able
adj

Definition of INALIENABLE

: incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred

[EternalVigilance]

Those who think there is a “right to die” don’t know the first thing about right, rights, or what America even is.

[EnglishCon]

I disagree completely.

And this comes from experience, and from a wife in the profession.

Hospitals, dealing with people in their final stages of disease go out of their way to ensure that they are as pain free as possible.

This statement makes it sound like the folks in the hospital are heartless animals.

And if you think people are not given increasing doses of morphine at the end, you are not paying attention.

---

Before my operation (liver transplant, and my own damned fault as a long term alcoholic - dry 2 years now) I used to volunteer on our local hospital’s terminal ward two days a week.
I don’t know about the American system, but Vermont Lt has it right.
Nurses and Doctors are human. They have empathy (mostly), though the job forces them to hide it well. If someone is in pain, they will get an extra dose of pain killers.

If someone really wants to die, I am in favor of allowing them to as peacefully as possible. After all, why would you refuse to extend the same mercy to a person as you would to a slowly and painfully dying dog?
Living or dying is the ultimate inalienable right, in my mind.
Medical staff walk a fine line - found that out the hard way as a medic in the Falklands. I don’t particularly like the idea of it being “mandated and approved” but I can see times when it would be a kindness.

Sometimes, it is.

[Del Rapier]

A lot of “traditional” liberal societies defend their policies by saying they follow an older(no pun intended) order of things-a time when infanticide was considered normal and older people were treated as precious and priceless.That people are born weak and get stronger and wiser as they get older.

That children are burden and that the old provide wisdom as they get older on the proper running of a society and following authority.

Realistically you are just either so much expenses or so much revenue to these people,aborting the unborn means less kids in school.........more money for the government and who work for them.

Liberal society does indeed have a special place for the elderly in the future much like it has a special place for the unborn these days.

It is always like that.

[OrangeHoof]

Yes, it was sarcasm. Was it not obvious enough?

[wagglebee]

Yes, it was sarcasm. Was it not obvious enough?

Not when you consider that there have been more than a few FReepers over the years who actually support exactly what you proposed.

[trisham]

Exactly.

[LadyDoc]

the New England Journal of medicine has been pushing this since 1988, and it has been taught as okay in some of the medical schools since that time, according to one of my prolife friends who taught at Harvard.

What slowed them down was the Christian doctors, not the Catholic ones. We wrote the Cardinal (Law) about what was going on to urge him to alert the church about it, and all we got was a letter from one of the secretaries and a vague article in the church newspaper that didn’t come to the point. My friends said the bishop probably never saw the letter.

Which makes me think similarly his staff hid much of the pedophilia problems from him (especially of one priest who was popular with the liberals for his work with the poor).

I was happy when he was “kicked upstairs” to a vague Vatican post, although I think a stint nursing lepers or HIV cases in Africa would have been a better penance for the guy.