Tango2Bravo said:
My point is that there are fundamental differences between dealing with animals and dealing with humans, the principle difference being that we are humans. We buy, sell, kill and euthanize animals. You own your pets. You do not own your relatives. Make your argument for mercy killing, but please don't use principles of pet care when talking about people.
I see a connection, but let's go ahead and talk about humans alone.
I see a huge difference between DNR orders/ suspension of heroic measures and euthanasia. I completely understand a terminally ill person asking that heroic measures not be taken, or refusing a surgery that may only prolong his life for a little while without any hope of recovery. What I do not support is helping someone actively end their life.
And why not? There's a hell of a difference between involuntary euthanasia and a rational person choosing not to survive under certain conditions.
My grandfather died in a car crash in the mid-nineties. His corpse stopped breathing last spring. He had a living will stating that extraordinary measures were not to be taken to resuscitate him, and it was done anyway. He spent the next ten years fumbling through whatever means at hand trying to kill himself or have others help him to do so.
He had severe brain damage, but if he had difficulty articulating it, he still knew what he wanted and I regret not being able to help him to do so.
I see a few degrees of what could be done here:
-a demonstrably lucid, articulate, and responsible person choosing to terminate their life because of extenuating medical circumstances. Disabling pain, and progressive debilitation with no possibility of recovery. This is what I understand Netherlands policy goes by, and which some lobbyists for the disabled view to be unacceptable due to pressure for candidates to choose the option. Paraplegics shouldn't be offered it, but someone who's busy dying a horrible death should.
-a person who is not medically competent to make their own decisions (and will not recover to do so in the future) but who has made such decisions on their behalf against such an event. If buddy's going to be a mental vegetable, let him choose to die. A relative came on the scene in my grandfather's case, and overrode his will. She was aware that his choice hadn't changed, but she just couldn't accept his death. She spent the next ten years wishing she'd hadn't lifted the DNR, and a living will under a modified law might have allowed the corpse to finish dying even after the fact.
There would need to be a properly documented living will outlining the terms under which the patient could be terminated, and there would need to be no reasonable challenge (eg. sister saying "we'd talked it over the day before the accident and he'd changed his mind).
-Prescribed euthanasia. Bureaucrats developing policies to guide doctors as they decide who lives and dies, which predicted qualities of life are acceptable or not. The end-result of slippery slope arguments against mercy killing.
I don't support the last variant, and the second variant is hard to argue for when the first isn't even accepted as appropriate.
I accept that most suicidal people are sick and need help. I don't accept that people who are looking at what they themselves consider a miserable, painful life don't have a choice in the matter.
