Assisted suicide

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Darryl_B

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My country is currently proposing a bill that would permit assisted suicide. I realize there are many countries in the world which we are just following behind (blindly), one’s who have paved the way in a sense, and countries we seem to want to embrace in the fear least it seem that we might be a backward colony?

I agree fully with my Catholic Faith position, however I am looking for arguments which might reflect more on our secular culture, without having to use the rather appropriate and applicable Nazi argument for the first time in my life.

Any ideas which provoke other ideas which build and provoke other ideas would be greatly appreciated.
 
Darryl_B said:
I agree fully with my Catholic Faith position, however I am looking for arguments which might reflect more on our secular culture
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That such a system is likely to become voluntary in name only is a good place to start.
 
As Catholics we understand the importance of suffering. We know it isn’t meaningless. AS is exactly the sort of thing that happens when people try to help other people without the benefit of theology (read Frank Sheed’s great little book “Map of Life”). What actually happens is, rather than giving a person dignity (which we all have whether man recognizes it or not), it strips it from them. It says your pain is nothing more than an inconvenience, and is basically pointless and so your life becomes pointless. I think a lot of pro-AS people really believe they’re doing what is best, but like many good intentions the outcome is actually the opposite.
 
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Arkansan said:
That such a system is likely to become voluntary in name only is a good place to start.
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Slippery slope arguments can only hold so much water when you’re trying to convert proponents.
 
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Arkansan said:
That such a system is likely to become voluntary in name only is a good place to start.
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A thought: In the United States about twenty to thirty years ago (possibly a little longer) laws were enacted that imposed a penalty/fine on anyone driving a car that did not fasten a self belt. It was however considered a secondary offense. It was only enforced if a law officer stopped a car for another offense and subsequently discovered the driver was not wearing a seat belt. Well, guess what has happened over time. It is now a primary offense to drive with an unfastened seat belt and as a primary offense, it allow a law officer to stop you for no other reason if he/she so chooses.

This is what happens with laws. Someone mentioned the “slippery slope”. Mercy killing may start out as an option or merely a personal choice. But give the pro choice people an opening, and the possibility exists that mercy killing can become compulsory. You say it could never happen? Look at the historical atrocities committed by those in power over the centuries and then ask the question again.

Shalom
 
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TheAmazingGrace said:
…and we wonder why people don’t take Catholic arguments seriously.
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I’ll gladly (and with apologies) take your smug little aside seriously if you can promise me that there will NEVER be compulsory abortion mandated for children identified in the womb as having Down Syndrome, anacephalia, extremity deformity, mental illness, cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, or any of a whole bunch of other conditions that smug people who consider themselves superior to the "disadvantaged, challenged, or simply crippled, (or people who hold that abortion is an abomination before a loving God) consider not worth living.
 
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joeybaggz said:
I’ll take your smug little aside seriously if you can promise me that there will NEVER be compulsory abortion mandated for children identified in the womb as having Down Syndrome, anacephalia, extremity deformity, mental illness, cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, or any of a whole bunch of other conditions that smug people who consider themselves superior to the "disadvantaged, challenged, or simply crippled, (or people who hold that abortion is an abomination before a loving God) consider not worth living.
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I don’t have to promise you anything. It’s extremely fallacious to base your arguments off of something that hasn’t happened since Roe v. Wade came into effect, and it makes people less likely to take objections from Catholic people seriously.
 
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joeybaggz said:
Mercy killing may start out as an option or merely a personal choice. But give the pro choice people an opening, and the possibility exists that mercy killing can become compulsory.
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I don’t think it’ll ever become de jure mandatory, just that doctors and insurance companies will start to pressure people into it once it’s considered broadly acceptable.
 
TheAmazingGrace said:
I don’t have to promise you anything. It’s extremely fallacious to base your arguments off of something that hasn’t happened since Roe v. Wade came into effect, and it makes people less likely to take objections from Catholic people seriously.
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As I said, simply promise me it will never happen. Of course we would never intern an entire ethnic group for our protection (oops sorry, maybe I should have asked the Japanese before I typed that) And I think there are other examples, but then those in power ALWAYS have the best interests of the people in mind. (Excuse me, I have to stop typing, I can’t stop laughing at that last thought…)
 
Arkansan said:
I don’t think it’ll ever become de jure mandatory, just that doctors and insurance companies will start to pressure people into it once it’s considered broadly acceptable.
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Look, I agree with you and others who think compulsory AS is not possible, or at least compulsory. But talk to enough doctors, and pulling the plug is something that happens all the time. No one will just admit to it. And I do have faith in the good nature of people. But around the globe, atrocity happens. Think Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, the Hutus and the Tutsis, and genocide everywhere. It isn’t the people that scare me, it is those who historically have abused the power they were given.
 
TheAmazingGrace said:
Promise me that it will.
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Promise you, no. Consider the possibility and reality of those who think they are better than others and are right and just in their “culture of death” mentality and would (and do now) end the life of another at their own self-superior and self-justifiable will, oh yea! Just think of all those people who are seriously and even terminally ill, that pass away “peacefully” in the dark of an early morning hour with no one around in some hospital/rehabilition facility somewhere. And they are “suffering” from the conditions I stated earlier. Have had three friends and relatives in that situation.
 
In many states of the US, parents no longer have the right to prevent or even to be informed of their pregnant under-age daughter obtaining an abortion. The lawmakers have determined that the state knows better than the parents how to care for their children – and unborn grandchildren!

This is one small step away from the state determining that it knows better than the parents what is best for their disabled child in utero. And next on the agenda will be the family’s rights concerning adult family members with terminal illness, chronic pain, neurodegenerative disease, or major disability.

You can bet it’s a slippery slope.
 
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