Sunday, January 17, 2010

Euthanasia: If It is Good for the Goose, It isn't Good for the Human

Just because euthanasia is sometimes used on animals, does not make it acceptable for humans.

Palliative Care Options
Palliative care or the ability to help patients manage pain virtually removes the motive for suggesting murder as the way to end suffering. Animals do not have many palliative care options available to them. Lack of funding, and sometimes lack of compassion have hindered the advance of pain control for animals. This is really an indictment of those controlling the wealth. They clearly do not have the compassion to fund develop of better ways to eliminate animal pain. However, animal euthanasia is not a valid reason to legalize the murder of the terminally ill.

The Merciless Netherlands
There has been very little research or advancement of palliative care in the Netherlands since euthanasia and infanticide have become both legal and accepted. The Dutch culture has apparently embraced the murder of humans. without giving much thought to pain relief. This is horrible, and should produce shame in Dutch lawmakers and their medical community. It strikes me as hypocritical that now Dutch medicine is focusing on ending lives, rather than bringing comfort to suffering patients. The healing profession is now the harming profession.

When any group of citizens and their lawmakers accept the legalization of assisted suicide, infanticide and other forms of euthanasia, their focus moves to killing the sick and infirm, but not healing them. Killing replaces compassion. Human rights are driven by mercenary rather than moral motives.

The Wrong Focus
We in the anti-euthanasia, and pro-life movements are often accused of lacking compassion for the terminally ill. I ask you, is it compassionate to spend considerable sums of money lobbying and advocating the murder of the terminally ill? Is it compassionate to spend considerable legal fees to permit the murder of those various forms of live support? Or, is it really compassionate to use this money to research better ways to reduce pain in the terminally ill? Isn't it truly compassionate to research ways to enhance the lives of the physically disabled, or the mentally ill? You be the judge.

I say true love, care, and better palliative care are the noble and moral courses of action.

HHH  

Saturday, January 9, 2010

The Lost Lessons of the Civil War

Forgetful Barbarians
Those who advocate euthanasia and assisted suicide are forgetting the lessons of US history. They claim that it is right to kill the terminally ill, the disabled, and the mentally ill because they are not full persons. Not long ago our country fought a civil war about such person-hood--namely of African Americans. The country shed its blood to rightly declare that African Americans are full persons of equal value.

Convenient Memory Loss
I believe that pro death advocates choose to forget such lessons of history because it is convenient for them. The precedent of the Cival War does stand in the way of easily declaring an undesirable party as not human or full persons. So, the response is to ignore whatever strong arguments hinder the freedom of these barbarians to kill. Once again, it is the lesser right of liberty taking precedence over the right to life.

Racist Abortions
It is appalling that more us aren't aware of the blatent racism of Margret Sanger--founder of Planned Parenthood. Sanger and her croonies desired to place ahortion clinics throughout areas heavily populated by African Americans. Her eugenic goal was to eliminate large numbers of future African Americans. It was not suprising when I learned that Adolf Hitler devoured and cheerished the writings of Amercian Eugenicts like Margaret Sanger. We may have defeated the Nazi in World War II, but their idealogical step children are carrying on the cause through abortion, assisted suicide and euthanasia.

We must each deeply search our hearts and consciences, then rise up to fight this new idealological world war.  I adhere to Robert Singers definition of a human as anyone born to a human, and we all are humans.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Liberty Trumps Life

The right to life is more important than right to liberty.

Spitzer's Argument
I just finished listening to part one of an insightful audio presentation by Robert Spitzer SJ. Father Spitzer points out our three fundamental and inalienable rights that include:
  1. Right to life
  2. Right to liberty
  3. Right to property
Spitzer draws part of this information from philosopher John Locke, and the United States constitution.
Ranking Inalienable Rights
Father Spitzer argues that the importance of a right is directly related to the damage that is done when that right is denied. If you deny someones right to life, then that person doesn't have to worry about his/her liberty or property. So, right to life is the most important right. We can see the truth of this if we image denying the second fundamental right of liberty. Someone who is not free doesn't have to worry about owning any property. So, liberty is a more important right than owning property.
Euthanasia Denys the Most Important Inalienable Right
Among the reasons given to end the life of someone who is terminally ill is the complaint that the medical bills accrued, and the needed care giving put a burden on the person's family. In short it is a complaint that the family's liberty is being denied. So, by ending the ill persons life they are denying his/her right to life. This is done so the family can regain its liberty. This is selfish, and morally wrong.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Dehumanization

Celebrating practices like abortion, assisted suicide, and euthanasia emerge from the conscious choice of dehumanizing what are truly human beings.

Beginnings
Abortion was the first step in the process of dehumanizing unborn babies. At the center of the abortion debate is the question whether the fetus is a human being. When the decisions was made to kill babies in the womb it was because the unborn child was determined to be less than human. The popular linguistic word game goes "we are not killing a baby--we are only terminating a pregnacy." So, first the unborn were less than human.

The Progression
The next step in the process was to say that terminally ill people are no longer humans; because of their illnesses, their lives are open to be murdered. It is because of the burdens that these illnesses place on family members that is used to justify that the terminally ill do not really deserve to live. This means the value of life is measured by what it contributes rather than being measured for what it is. This unacceptable mercenary approach to human appraisel is repugnent.

If you doubt the reality of the scenario I am laying out, you only need to look at the Netherlands. Assisted suicide is legal for the Dutch in cases of terminal illness. In practice, by legalizing assisted suicide it has opened a door to the non-voluntary euthanasia of patients who doctors label unworthy of living. Any who rest in the comfort that the language of a law will protect them from medical murder need to wake from their dream-like state.

Tribalism
The pattern of dehumanizing certain people reminds me of the tribalism and genocide we saw in the twentieth century. In Rwanda, if you were from the wrong tribe you could be murdered and were in essence not considered human. The same practice happened in the Balkans.

The Nazi's dehumanized the Jews, and thereby wrongly eased their consciences of murder of those they no longer considered fellow human beings. Sadly, few of us have bothered to learn about such horrid events, and that makes it impossible to learn the critical lessons of history.