There is, at least conceptually, some difference between bumping off the retarded and assisting someone who is supposedly compos mentis to do it.

"Bumping off," by the way, is the term used by Shirer -- "systematically bumping off" he said -- in "Berlin Diary," 1940.

So how is this news?

The "supposedly" is freighted with meaning though, isn't it?

And it's news because people are always upset to find they share their "progressive" views on the value of life with the Nazis.

How I yearn for the day when some 'progressive' like Peter Singer throws the yoke off completely and says we are building a new world order, and it's not happening fast enough.

The answer, Orrin, is because the Nazis didn't bother to go to great philosophical lengths to fool themselves into believing that their killings were painless and actually a benefit to the victims.

Peter:

That assertion is at odds with the facts:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/007178.html

Should my physical condition ever become in extremis, the absolute last thing I want is someone deciding whether I am comos mentis.

In LA in the late 70s there was a woman suffering from a seriously degnerative nerve condition that left her in great pain and completely unable to move.

Quite lucid, she decided she had enough, and asked the hospital to stop any sustanence beyond water.

Which is when some religious group mounted a court fight to deny her that decision.

Disgusting.

Orrin:

Thank you. I should have known better. Excuse me while I slip out to despair for the rest of the day.

Jeff;
"stop any sustanence beyond water" means
"starve".

Why do you substitute a new complicated phrase, for the simple truth? If you cannot face the reality simply and directly how can you communicate with those who do? We see your evasive phrase and wonder what you mean by "is".

Jeff:

That is indeed a poignant story, as are others where seniors are kept alive and in pain by the ambiguous blessings of modern medicine. There are also cases where an unwanted pregnancy may damage or constrict a naive woman's life in ways that cause us to scream to Heaven at the injustice. More than a few virtuous people feel morally trapped in intolerable, abusive marriages that cause them great pain.

My question is: How many seniors pressured into death by greedy and lazy relatives, HMO's or impatient doctors, how many selfish "lifestyle" abortions and how many kids scarred by the "me first" divorces of their feckless parents is it going to take before you face the issues squarely and stop using extreme cases to defend rank selfishness under the guise of enlightened rights and freedoms? Rather a lot, it appears.

Ripper:

Pardon me, but that was precisely the phraseology the woman herself used. And is far more precise than the term "starve" alone.

Peter:

You are right, that is an extreme case. But you split my point, which was confined solely to a person deciding to end their own life. And the question you need to answer is whether you desire to have the state make that decision for you.

And the irony is that the more extreme the case, the more at the mercy of the state you become. She was utterly incapable of enacting her decision on her own.

If even in that most extreme case her power to make the most fundamental choice of her life was subject to the potential imposition of a decision by another group entirely, then what freedom will you, or I have, should we find ourselves in that position?

Fortunately, ultimately the courts told the group to go pound sand. But their desire to impose their decisions upon others hasn't waned.

Jeff:

Yes, the state most needs to protect those who are defenseless, as was this woman.

Mercy killers prey on people like this, wildly exagerrating how intolerable their lives have become, portraying them as burdens to society, trying to convince them that murdering themselves is a way of taking control of the situation, exploiting periods of depression rather than treating the depression, etc.

Jeff:

A propos of what OJ said above, here is a gruesome question: How many of those who truly want to kill themsleves really need constitutional protection, support groups, death counsellors and bureaucracy to help them do it?

Facts: The woman didn't want defending. No one was pressuring her to end nourishment.

But there were those who were willing to ram their convictions down her defenseless throat. Remember, unlike a less extreme case, she had absolutely no defense against them. Someone less profoundly incapacitated could take action to end their own life, no matter what someone else decides for them.

But she couldn't.

Peter: You never answered my question. Who are you willing to leave this decision to if not yourself?

OJ: You going to leave it up to the state?

Jeff:

The question of whether you're allowed to kill someone? Of course it's up to the State. That's why there is a State is to protect us from people who would kill us.

Jeff:

You are confusing the issue of whether one can or should kill oneself (a moral issue) with whether the law should permit people to help you do it. (a legal issue). The answer to the second question is no. That is hardly the same thing as according the state the right to decide whether I will live or not.

Peter:

The case in point specifically asked that the hospital stop doing something, to stop force-feeding her.

After all, since she no longer desired to be fed, that is exactly what the hospital was in the position of doing.

OJ:

How could you misread my question, and the situation, so badly?

You are the one in extremis. Do you really want the state deciding for you how extreme extremis is? Remember, this woman couldn't even refuse to eat.

Jeff:

Yes, people like her are the ones who need protection the most. She was understandably depressed, but instead of treating her eminently reparable mental condition you want to whack her, because you think now that such a state would be intolerable. Oddly enough, folks who siuffer such traume, a Christopher Reeve for example, if given support and a period of adjustment, tend to find they've much to live for. That is if no one's had mercy on them first.

Orrin, you have the resources to know better, more than most of us here.

Get the physician in your family to introduce you to someone in the later stages of multiple scleroisis and then get back to me about how mentally reparable they are.

Reeve's condition is mild comparatively.

Jeff said she was perfectly lucid.