Take Your "Death With Dignity" And Shove It
I'm not a supporter of euthanasia for a couple of reasons:
1. I don't like the slippery slope idea introduced by the expression "Death with Dignity". I think it puts just that much more pressure on all of us to "behave" right up to and including death. Take your death with dignity and shove it. I'll squawk and ballyhoo as much as I want. Turn politely away, if you don't want to watch me go kicking and screaming.
2. Until the countries that have groups agitating for legalized euthanasia also have legalized marijuana and mandatory publicly funded universal healthcare, forget it. They need to meet those two Sooey conditions first - before even a discussion of legalizing euthanasia can take place.
Because that's just it, isn't it. I mean, read this article stating there is no slippery slope to legalizing euthanasia:
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In Oregon, people without health insurance - in theory a far greater burden on their families - were not more likely to be helped to die.
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Sure, but I bet they were a lot more likely to die poor, too.
I mean, what the hell is a society without publicly funded universal healthcare doing arguing about assisted suicide, anyway? First things first, people. That's how you make sure people aren't offing themselves just because they're sick AND poor. Geez Louise. Of course there's a moral dilemma if you've got this officially legalized free for the asking doctor assisted suicide program and sick and dying people who can't afford medical treatment.
Gawd. Talk about putting the cart before the horse.
And for disabled people and their families and friends? Well, yeah. Before any talk of assisted suicide, how about we make sure people of all degrees of mobility and ability are looked after, their needs met, their pain managed AND that doctors aren't going to any extraordinary bordering on frankensteinian methods of PROLONGING painful and degenerating lives - first - before we start talking about legalizing euthanasia - for anybody.
Tracy Latimer's father didn't do what he did because he was a big ol' meanie. He killed his daughter because doctors had done nothing but prolong and intensify her suffering and he couldn't stand it anymore. He was driven to a point of such despair that he took matters into his own hands because the system that was designed to do no harm has been so compromised that we actually have to have a public discussion about legalizing something that... well... let's face it - it used to be that terminally ill cancer patients could count on a goodly dose of morphine to help them shuffle off this mortal coil.
Anyway, my point is, there would be no need for the discussion if the care systems we have were better and the care systems we don't have we did. And until those systems are both improved and new (depending on where you live) I say we hold off on any discussion of legalized euthanasia.
Just in case we get it.
