ABC.net.au reports that some leading euthanasia supporters are pushing the counter intuitive argument that legalized euthanasia will actually help people live longer:
The architect of the Northern Territory’s overturned euthanasia legislation says denying people the right to die is forcing them to take their own lives when they are still relatively healthy.
Former chief minister Marshall Perron spoke at a public forum on the issue in Darwin last night in a bid to rally support for a new bill, currently before the Senate in Canberra.
If passed, the private members bill would allow the territories to again pass laws legalising voluntary euthanasia.
Mr Perron says many sick people take their own lives when they are still relatively healthy because they fear their illness will make them incapable of doing it later.
“It’s a fact that once people qualify for voluntary euthanasia, they actually go on and live longer than they otherwise would,” he said.
“The relief of having access to the means to die [can] reinvigorate the will to live.
Soooo we’re supposed to believe that people are killing themselves because they don’t have the right to kill themselves? The joy of knowing that they can kill themselves is what gives their lives meaning?
What kind of sickened mind makes these arguments?
And believe it or not pro-euthanasia types also argued that euthanasia should be legalized because it’s…well…less messy than suicide. Seriously.
“At the moment, Australians at 75 and older suicide at the rate of three a week,” he said.
“Most of those people die in terrible, violent ways and they die alone.
“It’s a tragedy that families have to find them that way, people have to clean up. And it’s all just so unnecessary.”
Isn’t that so much of what this is all about? We no longer can deal with mess. We just don’t like it. Old people can make messes and we don’t want to clean them up so we start wondering if maybe killing them is just easier…less messy than letting them live.
We’ve effectively removed older people from the family by pretending that the ideal is “independent living.” And anything less than the ideal is…well…a mess. I ask you who really wants independent living? Even the term seems lonely to me. We’re all dependent on each other. For centuries older generations lived with younger generations helping out and being helped. That’s called life. Taking in an aging relative is too big of a burden. We’ve somehow forgotten that imperfect life is not a burden.
The moment someone stops pulling their weight we legalize killing them. No fuss. No muss. Easy.
Dark and scary. And all too easy.
December 8, 2010 at 3:44 am
The only time I want state permission to kill myself is when I read this poorly argued garbage. Laws against assisted suicide are educative in that they tell the suffering person that they are of value to their fellow citizens. Laws in favor of it make you feel vaugely guilty of not taking out your own garbage and give the suffering person the impression that he's "stayed his hour."
December 8, 2010 at 1:41 pm
This is kinda like the canard that speaking out against homosexuality makes teenagers kill themselves.
December 8, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Notice that the Aussie spoke in a town called Darwin? I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.
You know what else is a lot less messy? Abortion. I mean, with childbirth, you have all sorts of messes that take a lot of sterile pads or surgeries with a C-section. Not to mention all of the messes that babies make with diapers and spit-up and then with the what-have-you that was neatly placed on the bookshelf. Yes, life should be unmessy, and no one should inconvenience me in any way.
On a serious note, if 3 seniors over the age of 75 off themselves every week, then maybe instead of helping them off themselves sooner, we could, hmm, I don't know, work to provide mental health services? Maybe their children could look after their elders, and I'm not talking about a 2 hour visit on Christmas afternoon. And with "voluntary" euthanasia, I'm sure there will be no instances when Grandma "decides" to kill herself because she doensn't want her illness to use up the inheritance that her loving, caring children are already bickering about. Dang this is sick.
December 9, 2010 at 2:21 am
"Maybe their children could look after their elders"
Providing, of course, that they don't live several states away. I agree that children should care for their parents if possible, however, it isn't always possible especially if you have had to move hundreds or even thousands of miles away from your family of origin in order to find work that pays a living wage for the spouse and children YOU have now.
I'm not condoning willful neglect or saying that care of parents is a burden, and I am CERTAINLY NOT defending euthanasia.
I'm just reminding you all that there are LEGITIMATE reasons why adult children may not be able to care for a loved one in their home. Please don't assume that its all because of pure selfishness on the part of children who don't want to be bothered. It may simply be children who can't afford the gas or the airfare to travel hundreds of miles back and forth from where they live very often. I was in that situation myself not too long ago.
I would have loved to be near my folks in their later years, but they lived in a depressed community with no employment prospects, and I couldn't exactly commute 250 miles per day to see them especially when gas hit $4 a gallon. Fortunately, they had wonderful friends and neighbors who looked out for them when I could not. I will always be grateful to them.
Elaine
December 9, 2010 at 4:20 am
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December 9, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Elaine,
I'm sorry that I touched a nerve with you. There are many cases in which children legitimately cannot care for their elderly parents. What I object to, however, is the sadly prevalent let's-just-warehouse-them-in-nursing-homes attitude. The elderly whose children reluctantly do visit only once or twice per year (Christmas and a birthday, say), despite being an hour or less away. Or the children who, despite being in a position to help Mom/Dad move to a facility closer to where they live, decline to do so because they just don't want to deal with the nitty gritty truth that their parents' physical abilities have deteriorated significantly any more than they have to.
My parents were able to convince my grandfather to move to a nursing home in the city where we lived from a continuing care facility he had lived in for over a decade but was over 8 hours away. That last year he was alive, I independently visited my grandfather 2-3 times/week. I learned a great deal from that experience. Though Grandpa's strokes meant that he no longer interacted much, and for the last few months he largely laid in his bed or sat in his wheelchair asleep and unresponsive, I learned a great deal about the dignity of life (I was only 16 at the time). I also learned about the potential horrors of nursing homes, even in "nice" communities – soiled clothing being stuffed in closets instead of taken to the laundry, small personal needs (like cleaning eyeglasses) that staffers completely ignored, etc. I know that not all families can move a parent closer by like my parents did. However, many can but don't.
December 19, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Depression is very high among the elderly for a variety of reasons, not least the loneliness factor. It is also under diagnosed. As dementia creeps in, depression often co-exists. Somatic illness also makes depression rates higher. Proper diagnosis and treatment of depression would probably do away with most of these cases of (para)suicide.