Category: Let's talk
today a retired police officer was given a suspended sentence for killing his terminally ill wife by slitting her wrists. He then tried to kill himself but this failed. His wife, who had been dying of cancer said to him, "this is the last loving thing you can do for me". Of course, the law does not allow individuals to assist others in committing suecide, so shouldn't the law be changed to allow yuthenasia? There are countries in Europe where this is legal, and there are clinics which will carry out the procedure. If it was legal here, and also in the states, wouldn't it then prevent these cases where people help their loved ones to die because they cannot bear to see them suffering any more and because it's what that person truely wants? If your dog was so ill they would never recover, you could have them put to sleep, humanely, so shouldn't we as humans have that same right?
There is a real ethical difficulty with this: Ian duncan Smith, the former leader of the Conservative Party, is quite right to point out that a law such as this carries with it great risks. Is it possible, perhaps, that old people might begin to take the Euthanasia option because they considered themselves a burden on their relatives? Might it be that the terminally ill would be pressured by capricious people to take the option of euthanasia? consider problems of inheritance and the like. It's a very dangerous area. On the other hand, I can see the argument, and indeed the formidable argument, that we should have the right to die with dignity if we are terminally ill. This issue calls for very careful consideration, and I shall therefore write more later on when I have given it the consideration it merits, but I raise these objections as mere preliminaries, albeit important ones.
Modern medicine has really given us a lot of powers that we still don't know how to handle ethically. I think this, not diectly but certainly somewhat, ties in with the question of abortion as well. If you are pregnant and doctors tell you your child is going to be, for a lack of a better term "a vegetable" i.e. will never learn to communicate or talk and will need constant care and feeding etc for its entire life, do you go ahead with the birth or do you get an abortion. My mum is a strong supporter of your option to have an abortion in this case, you're not doing anyone a favor, she claims, by having a child that can never contribute and will take up all your time and energy whereas you could try again and have a healthy child. It's a risky argument, broadaly speaking I agree but how could doctors be sure there was nothing they could do to remedy this, and what are the lines, some centuries ago I'm sure blind people would be considered equally burdensome, we can't really start breading humans, can we, only have the kids with desirable qualities. Sorry I'm straying too fr off topic cause this definitely warrants a discussion and I think LawLord made all the points I wanted to make. But the problem is that we all of a sudden find ourselves with the power to keep people alive that would never have lived earlier on and we feel not using this newly discovered technology amounts to murder (or deadly nigelct then), is it really so? It's hard to say.
I absolutely believe in euthanasia I have watched 2 people I loved die slowly and lose all of their faculties, they often asked us to help them die...a change in the law is long overdue.
Claire Curtis Thomas, the Labour MP, told a harrowing story in parliament during the debate on the Mental Capacity Bill which allows the creation of so-called 'living wills' whereby a person may stipulate that he does not want further treatment, including food and water, if his illness progresses beyond a specified state. Now, in this story, one of Miss Curtis Thomas' constituants had an elderly relative who made a living will. treatment was withdrawn from her in accordance with the will and she slowly began to die. At the last, she appeared to be in considerable distress and it transpired that she was making signs that she wanted treatment to be re-established, and the nurses reversed the decision to withdraw it. She survived and is thankful for it. I'm not saying that this means that euthanasia is wrong, pure and simple, but what I am saying is this: we have to be very, very careful with such issues. death is irreversible, and although I reiterate that the desire to die with dignity is natural, indeed it is a desire that I myself have, nevertheless I would be extremely uneasy about the introduction of legalised euthanasia. To return briefly to the police officer who today has been arrested, the likelihood in my opinion is that the crown prosecution service, who have a discretion not to prosecute, will choose not to do so. Perhaps this is a better solution to the problem i.e. using the prosecutorial discretion to protect those who assist the terminally ill to die. I should also point out that it appears once again that Goblin has not done his research into the law: there is an Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Act which was passed by parliament last year. admittedly, I don not know what the precise contents of that act are, but I shall look and then return to elaborate thereon in this discussion. I think, incidentally, that the issue of abortion belongs in a separate discussion.
well what about people like Dianne Pritti, she had motonurone disease and at the end could not walk, talk, feed herself ... basically she was reduced to a vegetative state, although it is said that people with such diseases are totally aware of what is happening to them, and of their surroundings and that makes it all the more hard for them. All she wanted was to be able to die with Dignity, and her husband went to court to earn the right to imunity if he helped her to die and he lost his case. I understand that it could put some vulnerable people in a difficult situation, but people like Dianne Pritti were totally aware, she knew what she wanted. Even a dog doesn't deserve to die like that, why does a human being
Because we do not make laws based on one person's case. Nevertheless I am sympathetic to your argument as was the European court of Human rights in Strasbourg, which ruled that the right to life included the right to end one's life. It was in response to this that the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Act was passed. I fully intend to have a look at this act and honour my promise of enlightening zoners as to its contents. remember, though, that you will never get judges ruling in favour of people like Diane Pretty in cases like this unless parliament authorises them to do so. In the Pretty judgment, which is incidentally available from the parliamentary website if you wish to read it, Their Lordships were clear in ruling that the Human Rights Act 1998 prevented their authorising Mr Pretty to press ahead and assist his wife in dying. To address once again the comparison between dogs and humans, I think sugarbaby that the comparison tends to deceive. we do regard ourselves more higly than dogs, that is true, but there are also far more ethically complicated problems surrounding humans. How would you answer the objections I put above? How would you answer the charge of the creation of a law that would license the dispensation of burdensome relatives? How would you answer claire Curtis Thomas? All these issues have to be dealt with by anyone in favour of euthanasia and so far, none have done so.
no but what i would propose would be to make the law such that yuthenasia clinics would be legal, so therefore, it wouldn't be down to a relative of the person to help them and give them the pills or .. whatever it took to help them die. That must be a terrible thing to have to live with, whereas if there were clinics such as in Switzerland, people could be helped by qualified professionals.
But that doesn't resolve the issue nor, with the greatest respect and with due deference to what is without doubt a forceful argument, doesn't resolve the central question at all. claire Curtis Thomas' story, for one, was not a situation where relatives had taken the decision. it was where the patient had taken the decision and left it in the hands of professionals, and the relatives had nothing to do with it. How would licensed clinics cure the problem of capricious relatives? if, say, you had a man after his inheritance from his aging father, what sort of pressure would be put on that father to consent to euthanasia? All the qualified professionals in the world do not address this issue. In addition, what if the qualified professionals went against the express wishes of the relatives in a case where the will of the patient was contested due to his being of alleged unsound mind? In short, what happens if the patient says one thing and the relatives the other, but later it transpires that the patient didn't mean what he said or didn't have any idea of what his best interests were? That could happen, and it requires rebuttal before advocates of euthanasia can prevail.
You've brought up a lot of very worthy points, lL, that I never really considered. Truthfully I'm a very strong proponent of euthanasia and a human's right to end one's own life. However, there is a broader picture here I guess and that is that coercion, misinterpretations and so on do happen tnd the laws have to be designed to take that into account. Unfortunately, many terminally ill patients and so on can't exactly easily communicate their most current wishes to anyone, so the question is what should be done in those cases? I think that suicide itself should be unquestionably legalised, however if a patient (and I am assuming a medical context here of course) can't communicate his wishes effectively, is it really suicide at all? Oh, someone after an inheritence, to use Lawlord's example, could make claims about how he/she was just fulfilling the patient's wishes expressed before the illness became too great all day, but it certainly doesn't make this the truth.
You are quite right, it certainly doesn't mean that the legatee is being truthful, and therein lies the problem that the pro-euthanasia camp must overcome. remember, that where there is a choice between taking an irreversible step and preserving the status quo, in cases of doubt there should always be the aim of preserving the status quo. Thus far, no answer to the problem of the doubts I have raised has been satisfactorily put forward, and if that remains the situation then the uncomfortable truth is that euthanasia is not justified. suicide is, by the way, legal.
Hmm, I suppose it couldn't be otherwise..can't exactly charge a dead person now can you? :P..still though, does assisted suicide still count as suicide? Presuming that a person is not able to perform the act themselves? And where is the line drawn? If I supply someone with the means to kill himself and let him carry out the deed, am I an accomplice to something, or is that perfectly allowable? Just a bit curious about how this sort of thing works.
you are technically guilty of assisting a suicide. now, the point I made earlier is that the solution to the assisted suicide problem lies in the exercise of discretion by the prosecutorial authorities, and I stand by this view. Nevertheless I also stand by the other strand of my argument viz. that self-declared proponents, even strong proponents in some cases, of euthanasia, really must tackle the scenarios I have put to them above before their argument is remotely persuasive.
well I think this particular case has now taken on a slightly different slant. in the case of this particular police officer, his wife suspected that she had stomach cancer, she uphored surgery or hospital treatment of any kind because she had been a nurse in a hospice so knew what was involved, however, the cancer was never diagnosed. She was however, terminally ill, and in asking her husband to kill her she did actually say ... it is the last loving act you can do for us, her irequest was, not only for him to kill her, but for him also to then kill himself so that they could meet and be together on the other side. Well his effort to kill himself actually failed, and although it is true that she was proved to have cancer at the post mortum, this whole case takes on a different perspective - don't you think?
This sounds like a woman who was at her wits end though. Sure you can ask someone to assist you with a suicide, but you cannot ask the other person to then follow suit. And given your description of the case she was not so ill that she could not have committed the act herself. What evidence is there that this is, in fact, what transpired and not, say, a story made up by the man to hide a real crime/murder? (I'm not doubting the story or being unsympathetic per say, I am just curious and would want more of the fact os / surrounding elements in this case)
cheers
-B
well apparently she was proved to have advanced cancer and would only have had a few weeks left to live at best. She had apparently stopped eating some months before and was too weak to carry out the act herself - will try and find the story on the bbc site later and post a link to it here. Either way though, like you said above, it is one thing asking someone to kill you, but to ask them to kill themselves as well? how selfish is that?
That is horribly selfish and somewhat undermines her case in my mind. No one in their right mind would actually be as selfish as to request / urge someone to kill themselves.
Does convincing someone to commit suicide counts as accessory to murder, I mean if you only use words but do not provide any material assistance to the "crime"?
Sugarbaby you've done what I expected you might and rightly confined your remarks to this particular case which seems, prima facie, innocent. However, wildebrew is quite right in that if this police officer did decide to be fraudulent, it would be so easy to do, would it not? after all, the deceased cannot give evidence, can she? Let me say instantly that I have deep sympathy for the plight of this police officer and those in similar situations, and I can understand that scenarios may arise where one person asks the other to assist him to die. However, so great is the risk of a fraud if euthanasia were to be legalised, as I have repeatedly said, that I cannot on the strength of this case alone, endorse euthanasia. This means that Sugarbaby and indeed other proponents of euthanasia, will have to enter into the wider debate and tackle the broader issues of ethics and danger. to recap: how would you respond to the fears expressed by Claire Curtis Thomas? How would you protect the right ot change one's mind? How would you eliminate the danger of the risk this law may pose to old people in particular? These questions must be answered and again, I'm afraid, theyu have not been to date in this discussion.
I dunno what to think about euthanasia. On the other hand it seems reasonable if the person is like totally helpless and unhappy and in pain, it seems right that they should want to be put out of their misery. But only if they want it, just because they're in pain and all. But if they do it just to relieve others of their burden, I don't like that at all. I dunno.
Caitlin
Ok, let's try this again...You make some very good points LL. However, I have a question for curiosity. How did the pro abortionests counter act the possibility that the unborn child's father or her own family could be pressuring the woman into an abortion? I'm quite aware it's not the same thing, but in my mind close enough to do a surface comparison. For the record, I'm pro euthanasia but against abortion in most circumstances.
Well, the fact is that they have not really countered it, and it's a difficulty that remains with abortion and that explains why it is strictly limited in the UK, and perhaps suggests that it should be even more strictly limited. the possibilities for euthanasia being abused, however, are in my view far greater. You explain that you're pro-euthanasia, Witchcraft, but against Abortion. However, whilst you put a question to me, you fail to even attempt to tackle the questions I have put to proponents of euthanasia. This you must do. and for the record, the difference I believe between abortion and euthanasia is that in the latter case you are talking of a fully fledged live human being with a conscience, a sense of his or her best interests and completely autonomous rights of choice etc. the same, I'm afraid, cannot be said of a phoetus.
The problem I think we have with euthanasia is based on the faer and assumption that profoundly disabled people and elderly people with dementia ect will be bumped off on masse ..this has long been a recognised fear of people with severe disabilities that they would be seen as a burden on their families and society therefore its better to do them a favour and euthanise the poor sods..Also I feel the the holocaust is very much to the fore when such people were "euthanised" in large numbers admittedly using inhumane methods and far too many still dread a return of that mentality..plus the pro-life lobby have been vociferous in their hatred of enthanasia and they have a lot to answer for.
Whilst I don't agree entirely with the pro-life lobby, don't the pro-euthanasia lobby have a lot of questions to answer too? Goblin's post is extraordinary: it highlights the real fear that exists, and I might add also the fear of fraud as I have set out above, but then he goes on to seemingly brush such concerns quite aside. can I direct pro-euthanasia people to the story I told about Claire Curtis Thomas MP's constituant? I repeat, the deceased cannot himself give evidence, so how does one guard against fraud?
Extraordinary thats me pal.that was the whole point to highlight the fear and nothing more ..cheers.
The prolife lobby advocate a continuation of suffering in all forms and after seeing that kind of suffering in Louis when he was dying fom ALD I cannot agree with their self righteous opinion.Yes the pro euthanasia lobby are just as forceful when getting their point across and yes fraud is an issue but when we are keeping people alive who are so ill and/or disabled that their quality of life is practically zero, then there is something fundamentally wrong with a society that condones such a deep level of ignorance
Oh for goodness sake! Yet again, a pro-euthanasia fails to answer any of the essential questions I have put. Not everyone who will be a candidate for euthanasia will actually want to die. In addition, it might encourage old people to consider themselves a burden on their relatives when this is not justified. Ignorance? We know where the ignorance lies! Such a spectacular failure to answer the essential questions I never saw!
LOL! Such a big fuss hmm ..1st he calls me a liar and reneges on a offer of an apololgy then he calls me ignorant isn't he charming.....
..........................
The people I was referring to are unable to decide if they want cornflakes for breakfast therefore, how can we expect them to know if they would like to die or otherwise.
................................
and we have failed to consider another major issue it costs the health service ect millions to keep vegetative people alive money which could be better spent elsewhere...on transplants, childrens cancer treatment and on vital research ect but of course we'd rather not think of people in terms of only the financial burden they are placing on the state.
I find it difficult to find the words to respond to those disgraceful and disgusting remarks. Goblin if you really believe that economic analysis, you are worthy of being labelled as ignorant, for that is what you are. The analogy you draw between people suffering from a terminal illness unable to decide whether or not they want treatment, and people who can't decide what they want for breakfast each day is in shocking taste and you ought to be very ashamed of yourself. You are all pious concerning the holocaust, but you dismiss people in a persistent vegitative state as if they were newspapers in the gutter. There is no place for views like yours in a constructive discussion, and if you really believe the nonsense you have put forward in your previous post you are not just ignorant, but deeply unpleasant.
But returning to the topic and forgetting those worrying remarks above, in an age where there is uncertainty even over how people want to dispose of their property on their deaths, can we really expect certainty on an issue so fundamental as this? I am sympathetic, I should say, to the pro-euthanasia view, but nobody has yet surmounted this hurdle which, for me, is decisive in dissuading me of its merits.
right, this discussion has got way way out of hand in my view and as it's my topic I am gunna bring it back on track. The reason i raised the point about the right to die was based on one case, but that one case got me thinking about other cases. Now, when I talked about the right to die, I meant, the right of a person who is terminally ill, or someone who is too ill to care for themselves, physically, to make the decision to end their life. I do not think that relatives of a mentally incapable person should have the right to decide to end their life. Goblin the comments you made about people not being able to decide what to have for breakfast, and being a burden on the NHS are way out of line! Let's not forget that there are young, impressionable people on this site, and lets also not forget that this site has a variety of people who use it. It is not beyond the relms of possibility that people who read these topics could have relatives, close friends perhaps, who are in care with Dimentia or some such illnesses. I'm sure they do not want to log on to these topics and read that others think that people with such illnesses are just a burden on the health service and that they should be put out of their misery and the money be spent better elsewhere. I have not recently read the terms and conditions of this site, but I am sure that somewhere it is written that you will respect others on the site, and have consideration for them ... etc, well goblin with those remarks you breached all of those, so if you can't say anything constructive, keep it shut in future.
Applause to you Sugarbaby for getting the topic back on track. I attempted to do this in my last post actually but apologise for not being that successful. I am still addressing the main point though, and perhaps it would make things clearer with an example: suppose that Jim becomes ill in his old age. Dave, his son, stands to inherit Jim's fortune which he needs as he is heavily in debt and behind on the second mortgage on his property. Jim knows this, and knows that dave needs the money now. what's more, Dave knows that Jim knows this. Jim knows that he could survive another year, and in normal circumstances he would like to do so, but he feels that the money his son is spending on caring for him is making him fall behind on the second mortgage, and the inheritance money would pay that off in one stroke and leave a healthy surplus. Jim therefore calls Dave to him and says that he wants to end it, before it gets too unbearable, but both Jim and Dave know that the real season is that Jim now feels he is a burden. Dave makes a feble protest against his father's declaration but doesn't do much to persuade him otherwise. Jim dies with dave's assistance. Now, what Dave has done is fraudulent. He knew that the real reason for his father's decision was to give him money, and because he needed and wanted the money he made no attempt to persuade him otherwise. assume also that had Dave tried to persuade Jim, Jim would have changed his mind because he really didn't want to die at all. the only person alive who knows all these facts is dave. If Euthanasia were legal, how would Dave's fraud be exposed? Jim cannot give evidence remember.
I didn't try to answer because though I am pro euthanasia I have no answers. I recognize the risk, and this is the precise reason why I could not in all good consciousness lobby for euthanasia to be legalized at this time. I my good friend do not live in ignorance of the world's cruelty in dying family members. As for your words about abortion I won't respond because it would be off topic. However, the difference; in real euthanasia cases, is this. The person who is choosing to die has lived, they have made the choice to die; I am specifically referring to the legitamate cases, however, the unborn have no such choice. And do note I said that I'm against abortion for the most part. Not totally. Again I am not ignorant of what could drive one to have an abortion.
No Witchcraft I'm not accusing you of ignorance, far from it. Your response shows that you have considered the topic and that your stance is based on reflection and consideration i.e. a well-formed opinion although I question your category of real euthanasia cases and your definition thereof, for as my example with Dave and Jim shows it clearly isn't as simple as that to discern the choice made by the would-be deceased. My contention is very simple: that without these questions being answered by the euthanasia lobby, they cannot prove that the statu quo should be changed. and it is they who must prove that the status quo be changed rather than anti-euthanasia advocates who must prove it remain the same, because of the fundamental and momentous nature of the change proposed.
Sugar.There was a reason for that post it was in fact a quote i overheard while on a train journey I unfortunately passed out due to a seizure, before I was able to state that so you have my alibi and FYI I totally and soundly condemned that opinion as callous and ridiculous.
It sounded very much like you were adopting those views as your own, Goblin. You don't at any point say that you think they're wrong, not until now. if it was just something you heard on a train and that you disagree with, why did you not say anything to that effect in the post where you put the point of view forward? This is not the first time, is it, that you have expressed views in shockingly bad taste?
Did you read the post all or just the part that you wanted to hear
C'mon Goblin if it was the case that you overheard it on a train and then passed out and believed it to be callous you would have said so in the first place...And above you said Louis was dying of ALD getting your stories a little mixed up aren't you?
I read it all, Goblin, I read it all. after all it wasn't very long and I flatter myself that I can hold my concentration for long enough to read a contribution of that length. Moreover, i have just read it again in its entirety. Half of it makes the point you made before about people wishing to die with dignity, which is a good point but which cannot be a decisive one in such a complex question, and the other half makes the frankly stupid comparison between people who can't decide what they want for breakfast and who can't decide whether or not they want to live, before going on to compound the folly by implying ttrongly that these people are a burden on the NHS! At worst, Goblin, that could be considered neo-fascism. If as you say you passed out in the middle of the conversation you overheard on the train, it should nonetheless have been apparent to you that these views were disgusting, so the proper approach would have been to share them with us and then disassociated yourself with them completely. You failed to do this, which makes us all wonder whether you are now trying to limit the damage by this belated disclaimer.
Yes whatever I do is wrong and as for the idiot who accused me of lying The man who was dying was a friend called Louis
young Master Louis MacFarlane is named after this man the bampot is well aware of the facts, but like your manb she has chosen to ignore them how convenient .Yes I was vaguely aware that the views were fascist, but when I'm going in to a seziure my brain is scrambled and I am unable to do much of anything except spawl in a heap.I was coming to the disassociation when I passed out thankyou would you like me to come out of an Atonic seziure to argue the point I couldn't even tell you my damned name!
actually i think for once in goblin's defence what he meant was, he'd overheard this particular point on a train, and passed out due to a ceasure while he was posting to the topic? correct me if I'm wrong.
Partly right I dont post with clarity
What I meant to say was I overheard the disgusting conversation on a train then passed out,then in the middle of posting it here I suffered another black out and felt wretched afterwards therefore I was unable to complete the post.This kind of opinion sickens and frighten me, its disrurbing to think some have learned nothing from years of fascisim.
Ok, but (being off toic again slightly, may be not) I think Goblin, nevertheless bring up an interesting point.
So, what, in theory, if we had two technologies being developed, bth have the same chance of success, some type of a cure for cancer, a cancer more over that affected children most often, another technique for improved life suport (say oxygen feeding equipment) that was supposed to lengthen the lives of people in come by, say 3 years. What would we do, I think questions like these may become more prevelent in the near future as r&d starts churning out more things we can do in medicine. Where should our concentration lie. And, of course, on an entirely different note, yet one which will eventually tie into all this, if we all live forever how are we going to be fed, the planet is already being robbed of its resources at an increaseing rate, population is exploding due to improved life prelogning technique and few infant mortalities, over-all this is great news and a stunning achievements, but ultimately this will lead to a population that is massively over burenind the environment.I basically think that there are cons, even to the miracle technologies we're saying and tings like euthenatia and even selecting between people's lives may become something that, weven if we do not want to, we might have to face in the future. I hope not, but I think it's inevitable.
Wildebrew that post is a utilitarian masterpiece, calculating based on numbers. it is for that reason, however, that I think the ideology is defunct, deplorable and dangerous. I think as you say that it's an interesting point, but the notion of disposing of old people by virtue of their age and strength - old peoploe who, in fact, often have fought for our freedom, brought us up etc. is gravely misguided and dangerous morality. A far better option is managing the birth rate as they do in China. This is, however, slightly of topic, and I shall return ot the main theme of the topic by asking once again: how can one avoid the dangers of fraud in a law on euthanasia?
And Goblin it wasn't clear what your version of events was before, but it is now. As a result I apologise for misinterpreting it.
well the reality is ll that there is no way of combatting fraud in these cases, but perhaps what we would need to do is to look at how they dealt with that issue in the countries where yuthenasia is already legal, such as in Switzerland. I mean this is not the first country where we have had this debate, and in some countries they have done so, and have opted to change the law, so what did they do, or see differently.
As for controlling the birth rate, well that idea is all very well, but they need to find a humane way of doing it, sterylising women after the birth of their first child could be seen to be the way, but the women of britain wouldn't have that - it'd be against their human rights.
As to the first point, I agree with you that there must be a way of combatting supposed or purported fraud, but nobody has yet told me what it is and having spoken to my Swiss friend on this issue, he informs me that actually there is an awful lot of discontent and controversy surrounding the law on this subject, and even the Dutch are more dubious than they were. As to the second point at no time at all do I suggest sterilisation, for to me that wuold be as contemptable as bumping off the old people deemed no longer to be a use to society. to my mind, controlling the birthrate is very simple: offer financial incentives involved in only having one or two children. Impose financial penalties on those who have more than the number of children that would keep the population rate stable. Perhaps one way of doing this would be to now allow a person with three children to claim child benefit for all of them. This is the way it is done in China and Malaysia and it is slowly having some effect.
When I said now allow, it was an unfortunate typing error. i meant not allow, of course.
well yeah that could work but there are an awful lot of stories of new born girls being killed at birth in China to allow a family to have a boy in the future, and that is just inhumane. So by limiting the number of children a couple could have, you would lay yourself open to those kinds of abuces. and also, would you make the law to limit how many children a couple could have? or one person. given the high divorce rate in this country, and also in the states, one man could father children by more than one woman, so would you say that once someone had fathered 1, or maybe 2 children he couldn't father any more? even if he and his current partner were to separate and he start a new family?
LL.Thanks pal I appreciate it.smile.
...............................
I must ask though how do you expect the state to afford the handing out of benefit per child to a family with 3 children..its absurd.. Also there is the added danger of families defrauding the system for financial gain.Where is the extra money going to come from,I fear from the seemingly bottomless pockets of the already hard pressed tax payer,I for one would be extremely annoyed to find I was duty bound to pay for these children, as well as my own.
He was called Danny and that post looked complete to me...
He was called Danny and that post looked complete to me...
Just a minute, sugarbaby. You are right that girls are killed at birth in China, but that wouldn't happen here, quite simply because the reason for doing so doesn't exist. In china, girls are killed because of the inheritance and cultural advantages of having a sun. Needless to say, such systems do not exist over here. even in fundamentalist religions for whom the male heir is always more desirable, there are sufficient legal controls on the exercise of fundamentalist religious traditions to prevent this from being a problem. See the Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002 as an example. similar controls could be introduced to further enhance protection, rendering the comparison with China of little use.
Well, in any case, the problem of population explosion is almost completely absent in Japan and the western countries. I do not have exact figures in front of me but I know there are only approximately 1.3 birth per Japanese woman, which indicates a big statistic decline in population. The areas that need to be "kept in check" are mainly India, Africa and other parts of south east Asia where incentive such as LawLord described might actually not come in handy due to the simple fact that many of the societies are too simple and parents do not, as it were, receive any child welfare/support payments from the society. In those cases I believe education/protection or some other more direct involvement might be more helpful. I think the bottomline, social rights and liberties aside, is that something must be done to curb the population explosion if we are to survive as a race on this planet, if we don't do it, nature will take care of it herself in due time.
Cheers
-B
well there are many in africa that say HIV/aids is nature's way of doing just that.
the problem is that in places such as Africa, it is not only peoples' way of thinking you have to change, but their whole culture. I grew up in africa, and can remember one day a black african woman saying to me, i'm 32, and I only have two children, if I don't have more, my husband will go and find another woman, I asked her why that was, and she said, because in my culture, if you do not bear many children, then you are not deemed to be a worthwhile wife.
Lawlord, you've stumped me. I can't think of any certain way to ensure that fraud does not occur. I still think euthanasia is a positive idea, but I'm saddened to say it will probably never succeed in the long run...unless someone else can think of something?
Harbinger of Metal, I'm afraid to say that it's not only you I've stumped; I've stumped myself. I do recognise the dying with gignity argument if I may use that shorthand, but the fraud argument if I may again use shorthand leads me to the conclusion that we cannot allow euthanasia. There was an excellent article in today's telegraph which underlines the point I make.
And now to the points raised by Wildebrew and sugarbaby: you are absolutely right about the demographic split if I may use that shorthand, between developed and developing world. However, this topic is about euthanasia, and population explosions notwithstanding, I do not think it would ever be considered appropriate to advocate the survival of the youngest as it were, using euthanasia to get rid of surplus old people. You don't argue for this in your posts it it is true, but neither do you address the point at all. If you had, you wuold doubtless have rightly observed that it is the developing countries that have fewer pensioners and people of middle and old age than the developed countries. so, if it follows that population management must be carried out at the younger, rather than the older end of the life cycle, euthanasia has no role to play. education and cultural change are our only hopes and euthanasia ceases ot be on point.
Speaking of abortion, has anyone mentioned rape? Some people use the logic that if the baby wasn't something you wanted and was made without your consent, then that makes it right. I'm sorry, but where is the logic in that? Adopt the kid for god's sake. That's what I said to one of my friends in that situation. And she said to me, I wouldn't want to carry that baby for nine months and then give it up. It would be too hard. And this is someone who I've known for almost six years, someone who I can say without a doubt was totally against abortion before she was forced into that situation. So, you never know until it's you. I apologize if anyone feels that I strayed off topic. I just saw some stuff about abortion earlier in the posts, and that is something that leads me to be very opinionated.
Someone mentioned reform as a whole for this planet. All I have to say is, look at Iraq. A lot of these people living in other countries don't want democracy and are probably afraid of new technology. Don't get me wrong. There are billions of people who would agree with our way of life and disagree with theirs. But you have to consider the mass opposition you'd get just by trying to change the world for the better.
Abortion after rape is an issue that should be left entirely with the conscience of the woman, and perhaps to a lesser extent the family, affected. I wouldn't dream of presuming to tell people in this appalling situation what is wrong and what is right. Euthanasia is, in my view, a separate question. I was researching developments in the law in the UK in this area, and notice that Lord Jopp's parliamentary bill on assisted dying for the terminally ill is going to be considered again this week.