Terry Pratchett ready to be test case for suicide law

D.P. said:
Humans are animals.
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No Humans are Humans. There is a reason for the distinction, complex language and the fact we use our brains to make decisions using weights like logic or our own conscience, rather than relying purely on instinct. We have issues to deal with such as thinking of the impact of our choices on others. Technology, rational thought, culture, debate, concept of our own mortality, there are more reasons than I have time to type.

Comparing an animal to a human is like comparing a Car to a Bicycle, we are superior in nearly every way, regardless of how you look at it. Actually quite a good comparison really if you take into account the effect our superiority has, need for fuel and pollution as a by product of our desire for "bigger and better" and the fact we eternally strive to better ourselves and further our own species.
 
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D.P. said:
Humans are animals.

What is the difference exactly?
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I really don't know why people fail to think for themselves on so many occasions. Life is sacred, blah blah blah, life must be preserved, twaddle twaddle twaddle.

I can't think of a single logical reason why someone in pain and not wishing to go through ever worsening pain till they die, with no ability to do anything else while in the pain, who wants it over with quietly, quickly and without pain can't do so.

You have to be entirely stupid to be able to not think through why its a bad idea. People come up with these generic lines without actually thinking how they came up with their conclusion, mostly its someone elses view they've simply adopted without thought. Which is the case for so much of our utterly flawed morality.

Preserving life isn't, even remotely, a big deal. How can we insist on making people suffer but be perfectly happy to be at war, with people who really aren't a threat to us, inflicting suffering on innocent people and dealing with our own people who lose their lives. The idea's are completely mutually exclusive, either life is so sacred you must never do anything to stop anyones life, or its perfectly ok to end peoples lives. Either there is a point and a reason which is acceptable for taking a life, of theres no reason thats acceptable. We live in a society where we VERY clearly have many reasons for finding it acceptable to take a life, why we pretend theres something morally wrong for ending someones life whose in agony, I can't fathom, there is no logical thought involved with people who come to that conclusion.

Whats more ridiculous is hundreds of thousands of people have had their lives ended with help from thousands and thousands of doctors, but these doctors do it in quiet, and are forced to live with the guilt, and sometimes punishment of helping their patients. While if it was legal, which it most certainly would be, we'd have LESS cases of people being helped to die incorrectly. because right now with it done in secrecy, with no one checking up on it, we do indeed have the "angels of mercy" cases where doctors/nurses and family members do end someones life thinking they are helping, but against the wishes of patients.

Its being done anyway, and causing needless stress and suffering when it is done, to family, friends and staff who help those who want it. It should be legal, with strict regulation as it would help a huge number of people, not just those terminally ill in huge pain, but the familys, friends and staff who wouldn't need to feel ashamed, of guilt for helping someone in need.
 
Fenris said:
No Humans are Humans.
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It could well be that my studies in science were meaningless, but I was always led to believe in the 3 categories of "life", animal, vegetable and mineral.

Certainly dont remember being taught that there were 4 categories (which presumably would be (animal, vegetable, mineral and I'm guessing Homosapien as presumably certain earlier forms of humanity wouldnt count)) , equally I am guessing that science doesnt place humanity in the vegetable or mineral category.
 
Tombstone said:
Certainly dont remember being taught that there were 4 categories (which presumably would be (animal, vegetable, mineral and I'm guessing Homosapien as presumably certain earlier forms of humanity wouldnt count)) , equally I am guessing that science doesnt place humanity in the vegetable or mineral category.
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In a thread with Pratchett's name in the title, you should really know better than to use a fallacy like Homo Sapiens. In future posts, please employ the much more appropriate Pan Narrans :D
 
drunkenmaster said:
I really don't know why people fail to think for themselves on so many occasions. Life is sacred, blah blah blah, life must be preserved, twaddle twaddle twaddle.

I can't think of a single logical reason why someone in pain and not wishing to go through ever worsening pain till they die, with no ability to do anything else while in the pain, who wants it over with quietly, quickly and without pain can't do so.

You have to be entirely stupid to be able to not think through why its a bad idea. People come up with these generic lines without actually thinking how they came up with their conclusion, mostly its someone elses view they've simply adopted without thought. Which is the case for so much of our utterly flawed morality.

Preserving life isn't, even remotely, a big deal. How can we insist on making people suffer but be perfectly happy to be at war, with people who really aren't a threat to us, inflicting suffering on innocent people and dealing with our own people who lose their lives. The idea's are completely mutually exclusive, either life is so sacred you must never do anything to stop anyones life, or its perfectly ok to end peoples lives. Either there is a point and a reason which is acceptable for taking a life, of theres no reason thats acceptable. We live in a society where we VERY clearly have many reasons for finding it acceptable to take a life, why we pretend theres something morally wrong for ending someones life whose in agony, I can't fathom, there is no logical thought involved with people who come to that conclusion.

Whats more ridiculous is hundreds of thousands of people have had their lives ended with help from thousands and thousands of doctors, but these doctors do it in quiet, and are forced to live with the guilt, and sometimes punishment of helping their patients. While if it was legal, which it most certainly would be, we'd have LESS cases of people being helped to die incorrectly. because right now with it done in secrecy, with no one checking up on it, we do indeed have the "angels of mercy" cases where doctors/nurses and family members do end someones life thinking they are helping, but against the wishes of patients.

Its being done anyway, and causing needless stress and suffering when it is done, to family, friends and staff who help those who want it. It should be legal, with strict regulation as it would help a huge number of people, not just those terminally ill in huge pain, but the familys, friends and staff who wouldn't need to feel ashamed, of guilt for helping someone in need.
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Don't get me wrong, I know what you mean, but the fact remains that we are a very exploitive race. It was only last century when we had a dictator who wished to put down disabled people because it saved money.

We need to protect each other from our own brutality, and to do this, we need to place an unspeakable value on human life.

But for this, where does it stop. Obviously it dosent justify murder or is even in the same spectrum, but the moral argument is somewhat weakened.

What about involuntary killings? Will it come to the stage where a baby could be born defective and killed, simply because of the "hardships" the child will go through, and the fact its for the best?

The secular society which we now live in does not tally up with this. If people believe there is no life after death, then surely any experiences in this world are for the best, if all that will happen is we crumble into dust?


Like I said, I understand the point of view, and I think there are most definitely cases where the argument is strong. But for the good of human kind I think it's best we kept the sanctity of life to a maximum.

Whats that quote about bad laws are made on hard cases?
 
Sensitive issues like this should be dealt with in a case by case basis, there is no blanket solution
 
bledd. said:
Sensitive issues like this should be dealt with in a case by case basis, there is no blanket solution
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Thats not too bad an idea, the case by case basis.

I mean , if I got a terrible debilitating wasting disease, there is no way I would want my young daughters last memories of me being of a drooling, shaking, shrunken mass in a bed/chair. I would much prefer to take the option of euthanasia so that my dearest loved ones dont have to watch me shrivel up like that.
 
As long as it is reviewed vigorously on a case by case basis then yes, I beleive that are certain situation's where it would be right to allow certain people that are suffering from a debilitating terminal illnesses to have an assisted suicide, but it must fit a strict criteria though, for example in a considerable amount of pain/discomfort.
 
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Pratchetts case is pretty much the crux of what is so difficult about this sort of law.

Right now everybody would agree that Terry is compus mentus and if he wants to end his life then should he be allowed to ?

The big problem is at some point in the near future it will be perfectly possible to argue that he is non compus mentus and is not fit to make such a judgement fo himself, even worse is the fact that it is perfectly possible to argue that just because someone says they want to die in 2010 that when they lose there faculties a year later that they may not want to die.
(Terry has a bad form of Alzeimers and at some point in the future will almost completely lose his memory).

imagine you have lost your memory and somebody says to you oh you signed this a a year ago and today we are going to carry out your request .......
 
In theory I'm in favour of euthanasia for cases where people want to die and have a justifiable reason for wishing to end their life. It doesn't necessarily have to be a terminal illness but where their quality of life through illness is undeniably poor with no prospect of improvement. The problem of course is couching that in sufficiently stringent legal terms to minimise the risk of any transgressions on the part of the people authorising/enacting the euthanasia. There will always be cases around the margins and I think some sort of independent tribunal to decide on a case by case basis might be a good basis to start from but broadly speaking I see no reason why people should not have the right to end their own life.

Occasionally I think I might be in favour of non-voluntary euthanasia as well but I'm not proposing that as a general solution.
 
My own perspective on euthanasia comes from having watched my father die from lymphatic cancer just over a year ago, and as I can only describe what my dad went through in his last 9 months of life as a living hell, I can say I'm most firmly in favour of people having the right to end their own life at a time of their choosing.

My memory of the day he died was of an atrophied, sallow shadow of a man, his eyes dulled with the pain but wide with terror fighting to draw his last ragged breaths from an oxygen mask whilst using the last of his strength to cry out in agony. It was truly the most traumatic thing I've ever experienced and will probably ever experience. If the option were there for euthanasia should I ever find myself in a similar situation to my old man, I'd have no hesitation taking it.
 
The Funktopus said:
My own perspective on euthanasia comes from having watched my father die from lymphatic cancer just over a year ago, and as I can only describe what my dad went through in his last 9 months of life as a living hell, I can say I'm most firmly in favour of people having the right to end their own life at a time of their choosing.
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They do.

The issue is "Assisted suicide", your father, may he rest in peace and meaning no disrespect, could have taken his own life if he so wished, however if he required assistance to do so, that's where it would become questionable.
 
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