The Right to Die

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18 Aug 2009, 2:41 pm

This issue has nothing to do with religion, as much as the fairy tailers wish to inject themselves into everything and tell everyone what to do. This is an issue of real people: grandmothers, children, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, partners knowing they will absolutely die from whatever terminal disease ravaging them. We all choose our paths in this life, and are empowered from birth to do so. Why should anyone suffer needlessly?

This is not endorsing suicide. Or advocating throwing away lives. But if someone is going to live days, months, years in absolute agony, isn't it the mature and compassionate decision to allow them to find peace if that is what they wish?

Living is more than survival, and no one should be forced to live a life of pain for someone else's parochial values.

Awesomelyglorious
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18 Aug 2009, 3:28 pm

rensilaer wrote:

What are you responding to? The last comment, mine, was about how the term "agnostic" has non-religious meanings. This relates back to me using a non-religious meaning of the term "agnostic" to critically analyze an argument for suicide, by essentially claiming that uncertainty/lack of knowlege (which I called "agnosticism") about whether or not suicide can be justified, isn't an argument one way or another, and this was to clarify thought. I am currently just getting frustrated that few people seem to be able to recognize that agnosticism has more than one definition.

rensilaer
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18 Aug 2009, 4:09 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

rensilaer wrote:

Oh no, not you at all. Shadowgirl and her religious craptocracy.

Awesomelyglorious
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18 Aug 2009, 4:12 pm

rensilaer wrote:

Oh no, not you at all. Shadowgirl and her religious craptocracy.

Oh, ok. She hadn't added an additional post, and I am just feeling more defensive than usual.

Sand
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18 Aug 2009, 6:27 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

rensilaer wrote:

Oh no, not you at all. Shadowgirl and her religious craptocracy.

Oh, ok. She hadn't added an additional post, and I am just feeling more defensive than usual.

Feel better. I understand and agree with you.

ruveyn
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18 Aug 2009, 7:12 pm

Shadowgirl wrote:

Euthanasia is wrong. Killing yourself is wrong. I'm glad it is illegal in certain places.
Humans have no right to take there own lives only God has that right.

You believe that people must suffer intractable pain in the name of your demon God? Nowhere in scripture does God forbid suicide, either active or passive. You have come to this belief by making up out of whole cloth. Shame on you!

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18 Aug 2009, 8:14 pm

rensilaer wrote:

Indeed agreed.

_________________
I live as I choose or I will not live at all.
~Delores O’Riordan

daydreamer84
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18 Aug 2009, 10:01 pm

Sand wrote:

daydreamer84 wrote:

MissConstrue wrote:

Well I've always said that if worse comes to worse then I'm up for a quick and painless suicide as long as I have an assistant who knows what they're doing.

Anyway, too many pros and cons. The trouble with this is, once a person is dead, there's no going back.

Yes, I completely agree, I think in the majority of cases yes the right to die should exist along with the right to live. However, there are so many particular exceptions to this rule, that make me question it......as is the case for those who have occasional episodes of major depression and may want to die at a certain point, but come out of their depression, grateful for their lives, and leading happy productive lives....... This is SUCH a complicated issue.

One of the complications which is particularly disturbing is to consider humans as production machines which a capitalistic society is prone to do. Labor is merely one of the elements in the means of production and the basic value that each human finds in remaining alive and enjoying it is discounted from an economic point of view. People, such as myself, way beyond the level of acceptability for current employment standards are considered as a luxurious waste of resources whatever their capabilities. Once people close to death are accepted as dispatchable as expensive luxuries we are next in line to be shuffled off this mortal coil and relegated to the garbage pile as junk machinery. This is a threat I don't appreciate.

Yes, that is a very good point. I didn't even think of the language I was using. I didn't mean to equate a human beings ability to be productive with the value of their life. Although I suppose that language/discourse that people use in a society says something about that society. The phrase "leading happy and productive lives simply came to mind when I thought of the way things should be! I am also not one who would be considered "productive' or "useful" by our capitalistic society, being a 24 year old perpetual student who still lives with her parents.
=>

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18 Aug 2009, 10:49 pm

I ultimately believe in an individual's right to decide their own fate. If you're against suicide, then no one will force you, but you can't stop me.

iamnotaparakeet
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18 Aug 2009, 10:59 pm

It is a certainty that all will die, why care to make it a "right"? Just so the time can be chosen? Can I choose other people's times also? Since that's where the fun of state run euthanasia begins.

iamnotaparakeet
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18 Aug 2009, 11:02 pm

protest_the_hero wrote:

I ultimately believe in an individual's right to decide their own fate. If you're against suicide, then no one will force you, but you can't stop me.

Depression comes and goes, please don't let it kill you.

Sand
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18 Aug 2009, 11:06 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

protest_the_hero wrote:

I ultimately believe in an individual's right to decide their own fate. If you're against suicide, then no one will force you, but you can't stop me.

Depression comes and goes, please don't let it kill you.

One might just as well say elation comes and goes, don't let it fool you. Life is not simple.

iamnotaparakeet
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18 Aug 2009, 11:13 pm

Sand wrote:

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

protest_the_hero wrote:

I ultimately believe in an individual's right to decide their own fate. If you're against suicide, then no one will force you, but you can't stop me.

Depression comes and goes, please don't let it kill you.

One might just as well say elation comes and goes, don't let it fool you. Life is not simple.

Being tricked and killing, I suppose they are equal things, you are so right.

protest_the_hero
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18 Aug 2009, 11:15 pm

Sand wrote:

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

protest_the_hero wrote:

I ultimately believe in an individual's right to decide their own fate. If you're against suicide, then no one will force you, but you can't stop me.

Depression comes and goes, please don't let it kill you.

One might just as well say elation comes and goes, don't let it fool you. Life is not simple.

Ignorance is bliss.
PS. I was speaking hypothetically.

ruveyn
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18 Aug 2009, 11:30 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

It is a certainty that all will die, why care to make it a "right"? Just so the time can be chosen? Can I choose other people's times also? Since that's where the fun of state run euthanasia begins.

We have a right to eat and wash when we wish to. We should be able to kill ourselves (or have someone do it for us) when we wish to. Doing things when we choose to (as long as that does not interfere with someone else doing the same) is an essential element of liberty.

We own our lives, we own our bodies, we own our time. They are not the property of society, the state, the government or of god or the gods. Period.

ruveyn

Awesomelyglorious
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18 Aug 2009, 11:35 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

It is a certainty that all will die, why care to make it a "right"? Just so the time can be chosen? Can I choose other people's times also? Since that's where the fun of state run euthanasia begins.

Well, there are multiple reasons to call it a right.
1) Making this a right can be used to prevent unnecessary suffering.
2) Making this a right gives individuals freedom over themselves, without directly harming others.(indirect harm is another relevant issue, but this is incidental not necessary)

Allowing you to choose other people's times does not fit in with either of those reasons. I suppose one can argue a slippery slope, however, one can counter that the slippery slope can be argued against through putting forward reasonably clear foundations for an idea.

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