Dutch doctors euthanise 29-year-old woman with depression

[Rhubarb]

No it isn’t.

Prescriptions and physician orders are a different kettle of fish. A patient (who is competent and autonomous) can always refuse treatment. “Informed consent” is prima facie required for medical treatment. And an employer coercing medical care is a different matter. The individual can refuse the immunization ultimately. This would be a matter of elective medical procedures. Like a face lift. Or botox injections.

And that isn’t equivocation. Equivocation is using ambiguous words that confuse premises. I wrote a biconditional to expressly state how I think on the subject and am inviting you to help me modify my thinking, if you can. Show me how that biconditional is wrong. An imperative can’t be fallacious. It isn’t a proposition.

 

[Cathoholic]

Rhubarb:

Our medical ethics is entirely centered around the idea of the patients as autonomous entities who get the final say when it comes to their care.

Who cares?

Medical ethics can change.

And why appeal to “our” medical ethics?

.

Show me how that biconditional is wrong.

No.

Answer the question about your principles.

Why not children?

 

[Rhubarb]

I already explained why. They are not autonomous agents.

 

[Cathoholic]

I already explained why. They are not autonomous agents.

And I want to know why you are inventing “autonomous agents” as being necessary to your pro-murder principles?

I don’t care about what YOU THINK our ethics might be at this point in time in history.

That’s a situation, not a principle.

“Ethics” can change. And if they DO change, THEN is it OK to include children in your paradigm.

Why or why not?

 

[Rhubarb]

I didn’t invent anything, they’re technical terms. “Autonomy” and “agency”, and I don’t have the time or patience to write you a paper on the subjects - especially when you’re being (choose your favorite expletive you’d hurl at someone who is rude and abrasive)

An autonomous agent has the ability to make rational informed choices about their lives. If they choose to end their life, and can be demonstrated to indeed be autonomous agents, they should have the right to make the choice. Should children ever be able to demonstrate they have the capability to act as an agent (I doubt very much this ever could happen, considering what we know about how a child’s brain works) then I suppose I’ll have to re-visit the topic and re-think if I’m comfortable with that.

The fact of the matter is this isn’t just a moral issue. This is a legal and practical issue. And trying to abstract those things from this discussion is pointless. I take it you are morally opposed to divorce. But the legality of divorce isn’t questioned despite your religious sensibilities. And I’m not too terribly concerned about being seen as a moral person by Catholic standards, at least in certain areas. I don’t care what God wants, or what the Church teaches when it comes to what should or shouldn’t be legal. And no, that isn’t an invitation to argue over divine command ethics. If you want to dive down that rabbit hole I would be happy to recommend a few textbooks on meta-ethics.

And now I’m going to express my rational autonomy by ending this discussion with you. Because you’re behaving like another word for a mule that the moderators don’t like. Lay off the vinegar friend, it makes you sour. And considering you are confused about fallacies - this isn’t ad hominem because I’m not attacking you in place of your argument. I’m just saying you’re being unpleasant and I’m done talking with you.

 

[Cathoholic]

Cathoholic:

I don’t care about what YOU THINK our ethics might be at this point in time in history.
.
That’s a situation, not a principle.
.
“Ethics” can change. And if they DO change, THEN is it OK to include children in your paradigm.
.
Why or why not?

Rhubarb:

And now I’m going to express my rational autonomy by ending this discussion with you. Because you’re behaving like another word for a mule that the moderators don’t like. Lay off the vinegar friend, it makes you sour.

Look Rhubarb. I’m not trying to be “sour”.

I am just trying to carry your own moral inventions that you have no solid foundation for, and illustrate that empty foundation to you . . . . for your own good (and in this case -suicide with approval of certain politicians in this case, The Netherlands - the good of society).

You have no firm foundation for your arguments other than your religion.

You have an issue about me and my religious foundations (and you expressed that here right on this thread, and I am OK with it).

But I think it is appropriate to allow your ideas to be critiqued as well.

And I am OK with ending the discussion too if that’s what you want.

I have not seen ANY firm foundational principle you have expressed here for you to form your selective pro-self-murder ideas from.

And I think that topic is too important to NOT be questioned about the foundational ideas here.

Ideas that you have basically invented or others invented and you just picked them up and try to pass those ideas off as somehow being principled.

These ideas you are putting forth are not principled.

These ideas are just a hodge-podge of opinion.

Basically it’s a form of invented “folk religion”.

 

[Rhubarb]

Like I said, this isn’t just a moral issue. And morality doesn’t need religion to address them. And I’m not going to craft a full and complete theory of ethics for what can be considered a legal matter. And I’m not going to give you an intro to ethics course on a discussion board when you’re talking like you are. You’re not interested in having a meaningful talk. You’re not interested in understanding what I think, you’re trying to score points.

I have plenty of foundations for why I think what I do. But I’m not going to try and argue it with someone who’s throwing canned apologist’s lines and worries.

I have invited you to critique my ideas. I’m more than happy to have a discussion about these things. I have a DEGREE in discussing these things. I love it. But I’m not going to subject myself to your attitude. You’re rude, and condescending, and would be thrown out of any philosophical talk I’ve ever been to speaking to your interlocutor the way you have been.

And it is an important topic to discuss. So if you give yourself an attitude adjustment, I’ll be more than happy to explore this issue some more.

 

[Cathoholic]

“Legality” frequently changes.

And IF it does, THEN is child suicide OK with you?

Why or why not?

The “autonomous” argument doesn’t work.

What if someone says, kids are “autonomous” enough to misbehave, older kids are “autonomous” enough to get pregnant, let the suicides commence.

And I have NOT heard a good principled argument from you why NOT Rhubarb.

I agree with you Rhubarb. The child suicides should NOT commence.

But you don’t take it far enough (you should decry ALL suicides).

You draw an artificial line.

And the problem with artificial lines is . . . they are artificial. They are unprincipled.

 

[Rhubarb]

We make use of a lot of those lines. The age of consent, the voting age, the draft age, the age to drive, the age of reason, etc. You might not like it, and I understand the tension of having to pick exactly where to draw the line - there’s the paradox of the heap that crops up - but we have to draw lines if we want to get anywhere.

Autonomy, rational agency, etc. are technical terms used in bioethics. It’s not just “old enough to do X”. It’s tied up with being able to make rational self-governing decisions, understanding the consequences of those decisions, being old enough to be responsible for those decisions, etc. They can make an informed choice to consent in a full-blooded sense. I’m sure there are nuances I haven’t explained. That’s what Google is for. As you have pointed out - non-agents can misbehave or get pregnant. That’s one reason we don’t want them getting pregnant. We don’t want them saddled with a child before they are able to care for themselves and the child. So maybe you can ask - why autonomy? Because that’s the line I’m drawing. That people should be able to make decisions about their own lives. That’s a base premise I’m not going to defend.

I am not saying what is legal is right. I’m saying that what is legal has a basis, and the basis for these matters is couched in autonomy and rational informed consent. As a side-point, I’m saying that the matter of assisted suicide has a moral side, and a legal side. And there are arguments to both sides.

As to the morality, we’re just not going to see eye to eye. I suspect your morality is informed by your religion. And that’s fine for you. To quote Jeff Winger, I see religion like I see Paul Rudd. I’m glad you enjoy it, I would not want to take that away from you, but I wouldn’t stand in line for it. Now there are lots of ways to outline a moral theory without religion - again I don’t have the time or patience to re-write my meta-ethics courses. But there are ways. People write books on it all the time, of all different kinds.

So while I’m not going to spell out a complete theory of morality (because that takes hundreds of pages), I can say that I can say that I don’t see how an autonomous agent taking their own life would step on the moral theory I think is correct. This is why I used the biconditional. I set up exactly what conditions that I think it would be acceptable to allow suicide. And I invited you to poke holes in it. It’s something I can point to and say “that’s what I think is right, let’s explore it”. That’s a tool philosophers use all the time to begin a discussion about a subject. It’s a thought exercise. And I’d be happy for you to see if the biconditional returns a distasteful consequence to me - because then I have to change the biconditional. (continued)

 

[Rhubarb]

So that leaves the legal. I suspect you want suicide to be a crime. Who is the perpetrator and who is the victim? In this case, they’re both the same. That sound weird. You can’t steal from yourself. Or assault yourself. Or sue yourself. And clearly, the vast majority of suicides do the deed without any help. I’ll spare the details of how it can be done; I’m sure you know how it can be done. So as a practical matter, I’d rather these people (who can be demonstrated as competent rational agents who haven’t lost their autonomy) have a way to do it overseen by a willing doctor who can ensure it’ll go peaceful and painlessly.

Now this doesn’t mean I’m in favor of forced euthanasia, allowing incompetent (the technical term) people to take their own life, or tricking people into it, etc. Those situations, the person losing their life aren’t willfully, rationally and autonomously choosing it.

 

[robertmidwest]

Miss Brouwers also claimed repeatedly online that she was working closely with Dignity in Dying, the UK campaign group formerly known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. Dignity in Dying, however, said it “has had no contact” with her and that she did not work for the organisation as a member of staff or volunteer.

Based on this I think there is some evidence she may not have been competent.

 

[Cathoholic]

Rhubarb:

why autonomy? Because that’s the line I’m drawing.

This is WHY I said your decision is arbitrary. It’s a form of folk religion.

Rhubarb:

I understand the tension of having to pick exactly where to draw the line . . . we have to draw lines if we want to get anywhere.

No we don’t HAVE to draw lines in all instances.

There is no “tension” for me Rhubarb.

I don’t have to worry about frequently changing unprincipled “lines”.

Why?

Because I make my decision here on the basis that ALL people are made in the image and likeness of God.

So there are no lines about who can murder whom.

(The answer of course is NOBODY.)

.

No one has the right to murder anyone else, even yourself.

Anything less is a phony foundation.

 

[Cathoholic]

Rhubarb:

. . . a way to do it overseen by a willing doctor . . .

Yet another precondition of yours. (You sure have a lot of preconditions for someone who alleges to have no preconditions to your murdering ideas).

You have no need of a doctor to kill people.

No doctors for abortion needed.
No doctors for suicide needed.

These are heinous perverted acts that hurt doctor-patient relationships.

No doctor.

A physicians call is to aid life. Not snuff it out. This is an absolute perversion of the doctor-patient relationship.

 

[ConstantLearner]

And that isn’t equivocation. Equivocation is using ambiguous words that confuse premises. I wrote a biconditional to expressly state how I think on the subject and am inviting you to help me modify my thinking, if you can. Show me how that biconditional is wrong. An imperative can’t be fallacious. It isn’t a proposition.

I agree, and I did study all this in school. Wish I could forget it, but I can’t - yet.

 

[Rhubarb]

Calling that folk religion is silly at best. Youre making wild accusations without any sort of explanation. You’re trying to score points, not engage in a discussion. It has nothing to do with religion. We make arbitrary decisions all the time from as mundane as what we want to eat for lunch to as important as how legislatures start writing laws and what base premises we will accept to start an argument on. As professor Antonelli used to say “if we fight about every basic innocuous premise we’re never going to get anywhere.”

Why do I think autonomy is a good start for this particular area? Well, I think we can both agree that people can be autonomous agents. And we agree that we shouldn’t, in medical cases, impose on a patient’s free will - no forced procedures, no tricking people into procedures, etc. And because it’s unacceptable to use your maybe-he-doesn’t-exist God as a starting point - for a number of reasons.

See, I’m trying to limit the scope of this discussion because it can quickly spiral off. You want to keep ripping the discussion to your morality. Okay, let’s talk about arbitraryness. You don’t like where I’m drawing lines. But you are drawing lines too. Your morality depends on God. Why your God? Why not Steve? Or Frank? Or my dog Lily? Oh, because he made the world. So what? Why does that matter? Why does that matter?
Why does THAT matter? See, you’re just drawing lines. Why not Chang’s God, or Ali’s God, or Singh’s God? Oh, because yours is right. Because you say so. That’s arbitrary. And for that matter, let’s just say for the sake of argument that your God is the correct God. Why does he choose which things are moral and which isn’t? Because that’s certainly arbitrary to just announce by fiat what is right and what is wrong. Oh but he’s immune to that critique, because you say so… You just… fanagle some definition that says God is immune to all these problems. Why is THAT the correct definition of God? Why not the myriad other conceptions of God? But ultimately, it’s because you think God can throw you into Hell if you don’t play by his rules. That’s not a basis of objective morality. That’s a tyrant who has the power to enforce their own subjective whims. That isn’t morality. That’s coercion.

There, do you see why I’m not drilling so far down? Because not every matter needs to end up with whether or not God exists. I’ve managed to go 34 years without being concerned about what someone’s maybe-they-exist-God cares about. There are other ways to deal with these things and refusing to acknowledge that is just petulant.

But I’m done engaging with an armchair sophist, I don’t want to waste my time talking to someone who is just spouting canned lines from the apologists’ radio shows but who clearly hasn’t investigated the matters completely - at least as far as I can tell from your responses. I’ll just take solace in the fact that my view is getting more popular, yours is getting less popular, and soon enough having these debates won’t matter because my view will win out.

 

[Cathoholic]

Rhubarb:

Calling that folk religion is silly at best.

Call it what you want.

You INVENTING what YOU think to be necessary preconditions to murder, are just that–inventions.

If you don’t like the phrase “folk-religion” for your invented belief system, you can call it “Rhubarbism”, or some other euphemism.

But it still represents a home-cooked set of beliefs with no solid foundation. It is an invented religion.

 

[Cathoholic]

Rhubarb:

Why do I think autonomy is a good start for this particular area?

You don’t think autonomy is a good statrt.

You think SELECTED autonomy is (this is but one of your ambiguities in your fallacy Rhubarb. Your inconsistent use of "ambigious. There were others. The only sophisms here are from the suicide advocates). A selected autonomy that YOU think is right based on what conditions YOU think are appropriate.

You ignore children in this equation of yours (others don’t. Others think its OK for kids to commit suicide).

You drag physicians into your “autonomous” equation. Others don’t.

You ignore how murder affects OTHER people (I don’t).

The only “autonomous” aspect about this Rhubarb is your belief system. It is invented by you.

And you can do home-baked religion if you desire. But it will never have solid foundations. Sooner or later it always reveals itself for what it is . . . . “Home-baked religion.”

 

[Rhubarb]

Just stop. You and I are done with this.

 

[Cathoholic]

ConstantLearner:

I agree, and I did study all this in school. Wish I could forget it, but I can’t - yet.

This was based upon. . . .

Equivocation is using ambiguous words that confuse premises . . .

ConstantLearner.

If you use a “definition” of “autonomy” based upon somebody’s mere opinion (or a mere man-made law), and later somebody CHANGES that mere opinion (or CHANGES that mere man-made law) can’t you see how the definition of the premise CHANGES?

You said you studied logic.

Are you telling me someone can’t CHANGE their opinion of when “autonomy” occurs?

Are you trying to posit civil laws are not fickle and subject to frequent change too?

And if I am really missing the mark on analysis of Rhubarb’s faulty syllogism, what happened to your position of everybody just “finding the right path for themselves?”

Ya mean if my logic is so bad, but I see it as Rhubarb’s logic being defective, I am not allowed to find THIS PATH?

But you are OK with people murdering themselves as long as YOU THINK they have “found the right path for THEMselves”, but you are going to get bent out of shape over MY criticism of faulty logic? Really?

.

ConstantLearner:

.

Murder is OK with you rationalized by “finding your own path”? . . . . But . . . .
. . . You have a problem with my alleged illogic and will NOT allow ME to “find MY own path” by calling out Rhubarb’s fuzzy thinking??

.

Do you see the inverted value system you are displaying here regarding your argumentation and the bogus ideas you’ve imbibed?

 

[Cathoholic]

Doctors Condemn Massachusetts Suicide Bill
.
Bill would force every doctor to participate in prescribing lethal medication
.
Bill McMorris
February 1, 2018
.
Doctors in Massachusetts are speaking out against a proposal to approve physician-assisted suicide, arguing that its End of Life Options Act could force all doctors to participate in doling out lethal medication and pressure patients into suicide.
.
On Tuesday, Dr. Tom Sullivan, former president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, led more than 20 physicians into the statehouse to urge lawmakers to oppose a bill that would grant immunity to doctors who help terminal patients kill themselves. Physician assisted suicide—or “Medical Aid in Dying” as supporters call it—violates “a sacred trust” between doctors and patients, according to Sullivan, a cardiologist for more than four decades. . . .
.
. . . This is not giving the patient the right to die. It is giving the doctor the right to kill," primary care doctor Mark Rollo told the Washington Free Beacon. “We are mandated by this current bill to transfer a patient to someone else. I don’t want to be complicit in killing a patient.” . . .

Loading…

freebeacon.com