Replies

- My point is; -- You want government to make laws enforcing your religious views on suicide. -- That is an unconstitutional objective. Give it up.

The doctor is irrelevant to the fundamental point. Suicide is the illegitimate alienation of the right to life, as enslavement - even voluntary - is the illegitimate alienation of the right to liberty. You can call it my religious opinion all night. I am giving the argument of the Declaration, and you will not say what "unalienable" means.

Suicide is an 'illegitimate' right? - Says who? - [we know, it is your God that tells you so.]

Unalienable rights cannot be taken from you, except by force. You can freey give, delegate, contract [as in a constitution] , some of them to government, or to your employer, to the army, etc.. -- But you retain the freedom to take them back if the contract is broken, or expires.
-- But I really shouldn't have to explain this elementary stuff, should I?

The point is not that life, or the right to it, is given TO anyone. The point is that life, or the right to it, are given AWAY from someone, namely, the one whom the Declaration says has received such a right as an unalienable endowment.

Poorly expressed, but 'given away' means taken. -- You, -- and the Bush/Ashcroft 'justice dept' want to take away the people of Oregons right to end their lives in dignity, with the assistence of a doctor. -- That is the point here.

- Unless you think that Jefferson also, as you so charmingly put it, ran off at the mouth, perhaps you would take a crack at saying what you think those words in the Declaration mean, why you think so, and whether that meaning is binding on all American law. I am unaware that my personal religious views need distract you from answering that question.

In other words, - you can't make a sensible argument, so you dare me to do so. -- I have. -- You just can't seem to accept it, or maybe you are so blinded by your religious views that you do not understand. - In which case, get help.