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Sad and complex though the ‘right to die’ issue is, I hope the law is upheld. Even when a few individual cases are moving, giving way would set a dangerous precedent whereby the unwanted old and sick will be killed. Life is not valuable only when it is healthy. Suffering is not meaningless. A right is a moral claim, and we don’t have a claim on death – much less does someone else: a relative, doctor or legislator. The man’s argument for level playing fields with able-bodied people who can commit suicide must be put in the context of laws… Read more »
I cannot for the life of me see that enabling someone to end their life when it has become intolerable will inevitably change society into one where ‘the unwanted, old and sick will be killed’.
I worry too about these laws that say all life must be protected. However well meaning, when they are allied to medical advances that only prolong life to prolong suffering and degradation, they enshrine a sort of tyranny in which one value – life – takes precedent over all others.
If that were right, wouldn’t even martyrdom be a sin?
Well, Richard, that’s a bit like saying that no one should have access to any number of things because they hold the possibility of being abused. Yes, we need to be very cautious in setting up a framework for new legislation, but I think the notion of a society where the ‘old and sick will be killed’ is a frightener to stifle intelligent and informed debate. This is a human endeavour, and you cannot have absolute control in any such matter. However, we can do our very best to put enough robust, well thought through barriers in place to sort… Read more »
That we have no claim on death, or that it is not care to terminate life, are merely private beliefs not shared by all, and therefore are irrelevant in this matter.
Law only works when it is unprejudiced, and it is not healthy or balanced to infect with our principles or beliefs – let alone our fears – the laws we make, which affect the lives of others, simply because it would offend us to see them violate our own preferences.
Regardless of individual beliefs, the law banning assisted suicide stands in nearly every country in the world. Anyone has the right to conclude the law is an ass in this respect. Personally, I think the law’s objections to compassionate killing are valid. Even with strict controls in place, I disagree that it’s scaremongering to predict abuses could result from changing the legalisation. The pro-choice lobby began by advocating abortion ‘only for the life or health of the mother’, and the practice developed to ‘on demand’. As well as the ethical arguments (slippery slope to involuntary euthanasia; implication that some lives… Read more »
I closed my last comment with a flip remark about martyrdom and it only struck me afterwards that the issue at the heart of this discussion is not a right to die – we all have that right now – it is the right to be helped. If I want to make a martyr of myself, smoke or drink myself to death, hazard my life in the army or doing dangerous sports or even take a shortcut and simply kill myself I have that right. The law will support whatever choice I make. No, the only people from whom the… Read more »