States Rights DID give people the right to enslave people of whatever color until the War Between the States and the XII and XV amendments to the Constitution. It also permitted states like New Hampshire to have religious tests for holding state and local elected office.

I have only one word for the Governor of Oregon: Lincoln. If he doesn't get the hint, we should try two words: Grant and Sherman.

I'm sure this should bother me more than it does, but in our Red State turned Blue (by just 3 large counties), seeing the Left vehemently fight to kill themselves is . . . well . . . a problem that is ultimately self resolving?

Voted for assisted suicide twice, I did. Also voted for both Bushes, twice each. Ditto Reagan.

Love this blog, too.

Life is complicated.

I am opposed to assited murder. However, This is not a Federal issue. Slavery as Earl pointed out above, was not a federal issue until the 15th amendment.

However, Earl, the States still have the right to establish religions and religious tests, even if the nine old women can't read the Constitution.

"seeing the Left vehemently fight to kill themselves"

Except fhat far to often they seem willing to take the rest of us with them.

(And if you can't figure out a way to get yourself killed, even if a quadriplegic, without a doctor doing it for you, you deserve to live.)

The Oregon "Death With Dignity" law is supported by at least 60% of the electorate here ... including many Republicans and conservative Democrats. The 40 or so terminally ill folks who use it every year are typically above average in intelligence, accomplishment, and economic means. The common denominator among them appears to be an unusually strong independent streak.

The most virulent opponents tend to be slippery-slopers. Weak argument, that.

Yeah, when has euthanistic thinking ever led to further horrors?

i don't get this "youth in asia" thing at all...

i don't get this "youth in asia" thing at all...

what ? are you sure ? oh...never mind

It's not euthanasia. It's suicide. A choice freely made by a terminally ill, mentally competent patient. The doctor counsels the patient and, if requested, writes a prescription for the lethal drugs. The patient then chooses when, where and whether to use those drugs. The patient is fully in control to the end.

Roughly 1/3 of the patients forego the prescribed drugs and opt for a natural death, an outcome which is facilitated by one (very much intended) consequence of the Oregon law: a vast improvement in palliative care.

they are, by definition, not competent to make the decision and, by definition, demanding murder, rather than comitting suicide. They're free to kill themselves, not to force others to or to give others cover to.

From slippery slope to strawman? That's just not the way the Oregon law works, in either theory or practice.

And I quite agree that no person should be allowed to compel another to kill him. Or even to knowingly furnish the means for suicide. Physicians here are not required to prescribe lethal drugs for assisted suicide, merely allowed to.

There is, as you would hope, a good deal of disagreement about all this within Oregon's legal, medical and religious communities.

Yes, they should not be allowed to have others murder them--it's not a crime that can be consented to. The Feds ought to prosecute.

Ghostcat--look at Holland. Oregon type laws are where it begins--it will not stop there. Yes, a slippery slope argument but an accurate one. Most slopes are indeed slippery.

It's illuminating that the most vocal opposition to these laws comes from disabled groups.

Not Dead Yet

Some moralists will tell you not to make a decision for peopel via legal fiat, because you can't know how they feel.

They get very quiet when faced by groups like the above.

Judd:

And those who make it through the initial depression. For instance, Christropher Reeves mother tried getting him to let himself be murdered ten years before he died--because who would possbly want to live that way...

Slippery-slope arguments evince a cetain lack of trust, faith, and/or poise. Oregonians, a defiant and not-that-liberal bunch, have been coexisting very nicely with this law for 8 years. The takers have been rare, indeed, and nobody's been unwillingly tossed into the cart.

Let's let this laboratory work. Sometimes a great notion.

Arguments against the slippery slope betray a dangerous naivete.

Labratory is an apt analogy, but people aren't rats.

Life is a slippery slope. And who sez people ain't rats?

No one who thinks they should be killed when inconvenient.

We are become Bugs and Daffy. I respect your position and agree with your last comment. But I continue to support Oregon's Death With Dignity law. Not as the first step towards euthansia, but as the last step in palliative care. I would go no further, nor would most Oregonians. "Live Free or Die" is more than a license plate slogan.

ghostcat:

It's distinctly not palliative care and they seldom tell you when it's the first step towards euthanasia.

It's both. And neither. Sits right there on that fine red line. Wouldn't want it to go any further, nor do most Oregonians.

And the "they" and "you" are my family, friends and neighbors. The law was passed by citizen ballot initiative, not by the legislature.

ghost:

There are always majorities opposed to the weakest.

The Natural Law of Social Darwinism? Bugs&Daffy, indeed!

My, but you're the night owl. Good evening, sir.