Word: euthanasias
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Last week another call for death with dignity-one certain to provoke a sharp ethical debate-appeared in the new issue of the bimonthly journal The Humanist. Entitled "A Plea for Beneficent Euthanasia," it bears such diverse signatures as those of French Biologist Jacques Monod, Situation Ethicist Joseph Fletcher and CORE Founder James Farmer. The document recommends not only the "passive" euthanasia now widely advocated, but "active" euthanasia as well: direct action to speed the death of a dying patient-an act that is technically murder. (No country has yet legalized euthanasia, though in some nations a compassionate motive...
...game was delayed for ten minutes in the top of the sixth and the ten or twelve spectators hoped the umpire would call the game to mercifully end the then 8-0 slaughter. But the ump, apparently not a proponent of euthanasia, resumed the game when the rain let up to a mere sprinkle in spite of muddy basepaths that resembled swamp roads...
...sacrifice human dignity at the time of death or to make the process of dying a burden upon the living is not in the highest tradition of medicine, nor is it justified in the humanist tradition." Basically, this is the argument employed by Marya Mannes in her case for euthanasia. Last Rights is, however, a slick, documentary-like series of sketches, each one muttering, never crying out, in favor of euthanasia. She recalls, in lurid detail, visits to old-age homes and intensive care units; she interviews doctors, nurses, families and the dying themselves; she dutifully records the legal history...
...principal argument for "the good death" is that so many suffer unnecessarily through lack of provision for complete care of the dying. In that case, the fact that all this discussion of euthanasia has even been made necessary seems a sad indictment of a "civilized society...
Suffering? Evil? Recite no Book of Job to Miss Mannes on the tragic mysteries of life, and mention "God's will" at your own risk. There must be no real losers, even at the end. This seems to be the Utopian dream hidden within the politics of euthanasia...