[lbo-talk] An end to it all

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Mon Mar 28 12:40:36 PST 2005


Marta cited:
>
> Chicago Tribune
>
> > An end to it all
> > --------------------
> >
> > The issues raised by the Terri Schiavo case linger and are as
complicated
> > as life itself
> >
> > Medical facts are cast aside
> >
> > By Lennard J. Davis, professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago
in
> > English, disability and human development and medical education

A few years ago I saw a PBS documentary on euthanasia which showed, inter alia, an interview with a middle age otherwise healthy man who asked to be euthanized. The point of that interview was that the medical ailment was not a necessary precondition of euthanasia, but the person's will. And it makes perfect sense - it is I who decide whether I want to live or die, without some doctor or politician deciding whether I am allowed to make that choice.

So with that in mind, medical facts are cast aside because they are largely irrelevant. Everyone should have the right to die at a moment chosen by him or her and in a painless and dignified manner. In fact every healthy person has that capacity ergo right regardless of what politicos or sky pilots may say on the issue. I can end my life any time I want and my a variety of means if I so chose.

However, people who are incapacitated or severely handicapped are denied that basic natural right stemming from the capacity of healthy person to take his / her own life. Instead, their fate is decided by various self-styled authorities over human life - doctors, politicos, or clergy. If that is not a discrimination, I do not know what is.

And the hypocrite... errr Hippocratic oath against not deliberately harming anyone - I wish the good doctor applied that to situations when patients are harmed because they cannot afford medical care or when they suffer from procedures performed for a profit rather than medical necessity.

Wojtek



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