From: Tony Halmarack <tony@halmarax.demon.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 21:25:00 +0100
Subject: Re: euthanasia
To: Subscribers to the mailing-list TWC-L <twc-l@halmarax.demon.co.uk>
Hi Guido,
Looks like you're offering subscribers of this list the opportunity to
communicate on a topical issue, so I'll get my 2 penn'orth in before the
rush starts.
In message <19960930.195144.13@halmarax.demon.co.uk> you wrote:
> Hi everybody,
> I am an anesthesiologist, professionally involved with terminal people, and
> have to give a lecture on (assisted) suicide and euthanasia to an audience
> mainly hostile to it.
> To be prepared : Anyone of this list who has a summary of the most quoted
> objections on moral/ethical grounds and how to counter them rationally ?
> If yes, it should be a great help if you could email it to me ,or point me
> to a source where I can find what I am looking for.
I'm not totally sure about the official line on this but I do get a sense
of there being some heavy reservations. I'm not all that clear about where
to refer you to, other than our Web Page at http://www.twc.org.uk
[updated 10 March 2005]; here; alt.suicide.*; and the public library which
usually has one or two works on the subject tucked away somewhere.
I can offer you my personal opinion on the subject though :)
I see it this way. Take a look at the level of widespread unemployment.
People are carelessly thrown on the scrapheap in their millions, causing
stress, anxiety and hardship. It's no use their complaining, because that's
the way things are, it's official. They'll just have to grit their teeth and
bear it until they can be offered an escape route to "the good times" by the
politicians and economists.
But what's this! One of the deprived masses suddenly expresses a certain level
of satisfaction with his situation. He's prepared to come to terms with his
economic circumstances, tighten his belt, develop some inexpensive
interests and try to enjoy making the best of it.
SACRILEGE!!! FURORE!!! This person will be found a job or a training
course,(preferably of a most unpleasant kind), immediately!
Let a married couple show a sign of infertility or impotence and the next
thing they know they'll be whisked into a hospital room, the female
will stirruped, legs agape and she'll be artificially inseminated
with sextuplets before anyone can say Jack Robinson.
Let a young widow show signs of choosing to be inseminated with her dead
husbands sperm, and she can look forward to a prohibitively costly high court
action as a consequence.
Starting to get the idea?
Just one more for good measure.
Look at the "News". All around the world, people are getting slaughtered in
their hundreds of thousands on a regular basis. The mutilated, the corpses
and the anguish are shown in vivid, tantalising detail. This stuff is just
a natural consequence of "Politics" and all the world can do is watch in
helpless fascination.
Let one person, riddled with cancer and in agonising pain try to exercise
the right to end their own life, with or without sympathetic help,
and the Righteous swing immediately into prohibitive action.
Human beings live under the influence of heirachical power stuctures.
Self determination is anarchy.
--
Tony Halmarack =*= Tony@halmarax.demon.co.uk