Re: URGENT - Please take action now.

In message <1147249814.910858.325890@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Richard Dudley <abraxalito@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes
Michael J Davis wrote:

[ Eric ]
>But do you really believe there is the will in this
>country or any other to provide the kind of resources that my local
>hospice can provide for all people, given all the other pressures on
>the health and social care budgets and personnel? I beg to doubt it.
>That is an appalling thing to say but I am sure it is true.

So let me get this straight before I read what else you have to say: you
are saying that because we have difficulty keeping people alive, they
should be given the option of 'being helped to die'.

Your choice of phrasing the alternatives appears to me to distort the
real choices available (e.g. false dichotomy of 'dignified care' vs
'assisted suicide' ). So why do you think the option of being helped to
die legally should be denied to those who would like to take it ? I
don't believe Eric is resting his argument on the difficulty of keeping
people alive. His point is not about difficulty, its about willingness
- to commit resources, demand higher taxes and the like. He mentions
nothing about 'difficulty' so it seems you are distorting his real
argument.

I regret if I implied that. My arguments revolve around two positive issues:-

1. The signals that 'assisted dying' sends to the populace as a whole,

2. The changed role of the medical profession.

My counter argument is that our society can afford whatever is necessary to provide hospices, centres for pain control and home care help, then that is where our priorities.

If we can afford vast expense on IVF while we are killing 200,000 viable embryos each year then that is just one indication of how our priorities are astray.

[snip]
Indeed. But are you saying that their life is in any sense worth less
because he cannot care for himself?

Why make the argument about life being worth less ? It seems to be
another distortion to couch the argument in terms of someone's life
being worth less because they're closer to death. Why not turn the
argument around and ask "Why should a person who is terminally ill be
considered not worthy of making a conscious choice to die ?"

OK. Point taken.

Hard cases make bad laws, of course, Eric. But in Holland, at present,
where such a law is in force, AIUI, the doctors offer the option of
dying. It only needs a few of the family to suggest to the frail and
weak - "You'd be better off dead". "I'm only thinking of him", as the
song in "The man of La Mancha" has it.

That's a spurious argument, since another argument could be made 'it
only needs another Harold Shipman as the doctor...' If the family want
the relative dead then there are ways they can do that, quite
irrespective of the law.

Perhaps. But the message is then still that killing is illegal, not something done by doctors.

When David Steel's Abortion Act was passed in this country, it was
genuinely intended to lower the number of abortions. By avoiding the
unfortunate effects of illegal abortionists, and sending those who were
considering abortion into the hands of those able to objective advice
and ensure that the health of mother & baby were preserved.

But what it did was to send out a signal that 'abortion' is OK, legal
and safe, and has become seen as another form of birth control. Now
one-quarter of viable conceptions in this country are aborted prior to
birth, over 200,000 abortions a year compared with 600,000 live births.
And that is ins spite of more effective and readily available
contraception.

And you're comparing this with what would be the case if David Steel's
act hadn't gone through, and we were still living in the era of Vera
Drake ? If you are, how have you estimated the number of illegal
abortions that would be taking place in 2005 ?

That is a good question. What do you think?

Why is that relevant? Because it shows how making something legal, makes
it available and another option. "Granny's not very well, shall we put
her into a home or offer euthanasia?"

I agree that making something legal makes it available - that's the
point, surely ? Your analogy with abortion has demonstrated nothing
since you have cited no figures to show how things are much worse than
they would have been without the Abortion Act.

I'm sorry Eric, for all the care and love that I'm sure your brother in
law is experiencing, there will be many, far better off, who will be
pressured into taking the 'easy way out', because the families see them
as 'having outlived their usefulness'. And that is something we need to
resist, and - as you say - fight for better care, better conditions and
even greater dignity of life in harrowing situations.

Evidence please that there are many families who consider elderly
relatives to have outlived their usefulness ? What of the cases where
the boot is on the other foot - where its the family that's in denial
of death and the terminally ill person would like to die but the family
won't let go ? Do you think these cases are less common than those
where the family are homicidally inclined ?

We both appreciate that there are areas where it is difficult to accumulate evidence. However, we don't want (well *I* don't want) to have a sea change in cultural attitudes towards the idea that assisted dying is an equivalent option to medical prophylactics. When that has happened, it will be too late.

Mike

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--
Michael J Davis
http://www.trustsof.demon.co.uk
<><
For this is what the Lord has said to me,
"Go and post a Watchman and let
him report what he sees." Isa 21:6
<><
.

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