During the past few days, there has been much discussion of philosophy professor Gary Comstock’s spirited defense of infanticide, in the case of a severely handicapped newborn baby who is likely to die (New York Times, July 12, 2017). Such an infant, argues Comstock, lacks “the things that make a life: thoughts, wants, desires, interests, memories, a future.” And if did have thoughts, its dominant thought about being kept alive on a respirator would surely be: “This hurts. Can’t someone help it stop?”
Bioethicist Wesley Smith has pointed out that the case described by Comstock (who is not a doctor), of an infant suffering excruciating pain as its life is needlessly prolonged, is totally fictitious: “When life support is removed, doctors do not just let patients twist choking in the wind. They palliate — as necessary to alleviate pain and agitation.” The testimony of palliative care physician Ira Byock (whom Smith mentions in his article) is well worth citing: “In more than 35 years of practice I have never once had to kill a patient to alleviate the person’s suffering. When other measures fail, palliative sedation for alleviation of physical suffering is reliably effective. Alleviating suffering is different than eliminating the sufferer.” (Maryland Medicine vol. 17, no. 4; January 2017.) And Dr. Michael Egnor, commenting on Comstock’s article for Evolution News and Views, writes: “The notion that handicapped children intractably suffer is a lie. I’ve treated thousands of these kids. Most of the conditions that cause severe neurological impairment aren’t painful and don’t inherently cause physical suffering. Spina bifida, holoprosencephaly, various trisomies and anencephaly don’t ‘hurt,’ and in fact the children afflicted are often quite content babies. They are loved by their families, and they can enjoy life in accordance with their physical limitations.”
Wesley Smith and Michael Egnor point out that infanticide is a crime against humanity, for which doctors were hanged at Nuremberg. Some of these doctors had euthanized handicapped children. Both authors make a telling point; nevertheless, the question needs to be addressed: exactly why is infanticide wrong?
“Humans have spiritual souls” – why I think this is a bad answer
Professor Jerry Coyne, in a recent article over at Why Evolution Is True, suggests that the opposition to euthanasia of severely handicapped newborns is primarily religious: “The reason we don’t allow euthanasia of newborns is because humans are seen as special, and I think this comes from religion — in particular, the view that humans, unlike animals, are endowed with a soul. It’s the same mindset that, in many places, won’t allow abortion of fetuses that have severe deformities. When religion vanishes, as it will, so will much of the opposition to both adult and newborn euthanasia.” Sadly, Dr. Egnor, in his reply to Coyne’s article, adopts a stridently religious defense of the legal prohibition of infanticide, arguing that there is something unique about the human soul, as opposed to the animal soul, whose operations are entirely physical: “Humans have spiritual souls, created in God’s image, which distinguishes them from animals.” I don’t think this defense is legally or philosophically adequate, however.
The beliefs that humans have a spiritual soul, made in God’s image, is a metaphysical belief, as well as being a religious belief. While there are some metaphysical beliefs which are fundamental to our legal system (e.g. the belief that there is an external world, that there are other minds besides my own, and that rational individuals possess libertarian free will), they at least relate to things which we can directly experience. The belief in an immaterial soul which is made in the image of its immaterial Creator is a belief of an altogether different kind. You can’t see a soul, any more than you can see God. If Dr. Egnor is right, then an atheist could have no good reason to oppose infanticide as a matter of principle. On this point, I think Egnor is gravely mistaken.
A purely secular argument for the immorality of infanticide and abortion
Several years ago, I wrote an online book titled, Embryo and Einstein – Why They’re Equal. In my e-book, I endeavored to provide a purely secular argument, free of any controversial metaphysical premises, showing why the intentional destruction of a human being at any stage of development is morally wrong. After citing passages from the writings of atheist feminists who are staunchly pro-life, I went on to argue that any satisfactory defense of the notion that the intentional killing of a human individual is intrinsically wrong has to be grounded in its actual (as opposed to potential) qualities, and should eschew all talk of a spiritual soul:
What distinguishes this essay from other essays written in defense of unborn human life is that I shall endeavor to explain precisely why a human embryo is every bit as valuable as you or I. Moreover, my explanation makes no appeal to the merely potential qualities of the embryo; instead, I only invoke actual properties. Thus my argument is invulnerable to the philosopher Peter Singer’s criticism that a potential X does not necessarily have the rights of an actual X – for instance, a prince (who is a potential king) does not possess the same rights and privileges as an actual king. And unlike the philosopher Don Marquis, who argues that an embryo/fetus matters just as much as we do because it has a future like ours, my account of why a human embryo matters is based principally on its present characteristics. Finally, my explanation makes no appeal to the existence of an immaterial soul, although it is perfectly compatible with belief in one.
In a nutshell, my argument was that anything possessing and running a program for making itself into a rational human adult, has the same intrinsic value as that adult:
In brief, the essence of my argument is that a human embryo is a person, because it is a complete organism, embodying a developmental program by which it directs and controls its own development into a rational human adult, and in addition, it has already started assembling itself into a rational human adult. A human adult is not merely something the embryo/fetus is capable of becoming, in a passive sense; rather, it is the mature form of the organism that the embryo/fetus is currently assembling itself into, by executing the instructions contained in its developmental program, which has already started running. (In this respect, the embryo/fetus differs vitally from a potential king, who is legally incapable of doing anything to make himself king, and who has none of the rights that properly belong to a king.) I shall argue that it is reasonable to regard any biological organism which is currently assembling itself into a rational human adult through a process which is under its control, as being just as valuable as the adult it will become, and as therefore having the same right to life as an adult. I shall also contend that nothing is acquired by an embryo, fetus, newborn baby or child in the course of its development which would add to its inherent moral value in any way; hence a one-cell embryo must be just as valuable as you or I. Finally, I shall argue that a severely defective embryo, which has no hope of developing into a rational human adult, has the same right to life as a normal embryo, because the correction of its defects does not require the addition of any new instructions to its developmental program; all it requires is the repair of program flaws, and that this correction would in no way alter its identity as a human individual, or add to its inherent value. Given that a normal embryo has the same right to life as a rational human adult, it follows that a severely defective embryo (which is just as valuable as a normal one) has the same right to life as well…
All that matters, for the purposes of my argument, is that:
(a) the development of an embryo/fetus is directed by instructions contained within the embryo;
(b) although external stimuli also have a considerable impact on the embryo’s development, no new developmental instructions are added to the embryo/fetus from outside as it matures; and
(c) the instructions in the embryo’s developmental program are extremely complex and contain a high degree of functional information… [I used this term in its standard scientific sense, in my e-book.]
How the embryo builds itself
To support my claim that a one-cell embryo is a true organism, with its own developmental program, I cited an online paper by Maureen Condic, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah School of Medicine, titled, When Does Human Life Begin? A Scientific Perspective (White Paper, Volume 1, Number 1, October 2008, published by The Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person):
The embryo is not something that is being passively built by the process of development, with some unspecified, external “builder” controlling the assembly of embryonic components. Rather, the embryo is manufacturing itself. The organized pattern of development doesn’t produce the embryo; it is produced by the embryo as a consequence of the zygote’s internal, self-organizing power. Indeed, this “totipotency,” or the power of the zygote both to generate all the cells of the body and simultaneously to organize those cells into coherent, interacting bodily structures, is the defining feature of the embryo. (p. 11)
From the moment of sperm-egg fusion, a human zygote acts as a complete whole, with all the parts of the zygote interacting in an orchestrated fashion to generate the structures and relationships required for the zygote to continue developing towards its mature state. Everything the sperm and egg do prior to their fusion is uniquely ordered towards promoting the binding of these two cells. Everything the zygote does from the point of sperm-egg fusion onward is uniquely ordered to prevent further binding of sperm and to promote the preservation and development of the zygote itself. The zygote acts immediately and decisively to initiate a program of development that will, if uninterrupted by accident, disease, or external intervention, proceed seamlessly through formation of the definitive body, birth, childhood, adolescence, maturity, and aging, ending with death. This coordinated behavior is the very hallmark of an organism. (p. 7) [Emphases mine – VJT.]
There are, of course, many objections to the view that a one-cell embryo is a human being with a right to life. I’ll discuss a few of them here; I answer these and many more objections in my e-book.
Are skin cells people, too?
The philosopher Sam Harris sarcastically quips that if embryos are people, then so are the skin cells you scrape from your nose when you scratch it: “Every time you scratch your nose, you have committed a Holocaust of potential human beings.” However, a human skin cell does not qualify as an organism. Its epigenetic switches, unlike an embryo’s, are not fully activated. As Dr. Condic puts it:
A human skin cell removed from a mature body and maintained in the laboratory will continue to live and will divide many times to produce a large mass of cells, but it will not re-establish the whole organism from which it was removed; it will not regenerate an entire human body in culture. Although embryogenesis begins with a single-cell zygote, the complex, integrated process of embryogenesis is the activity of an organism, not the activity of a cell.
I also mentioned that a skin cell can be artificially converted into a human embryo, by “rewinding” its epigenetic switches back to an embryonic state, essentially turning it back into an embryo again. I then argued that if a scientist were to do that and if the adult skin cell were rewound back to a totipotent stage, then he/she would indeed have created a new human being. However, until the switches are reset back to “embryonic mode”, an adult stem cell is not a human being.
The twinning argument
The “twinning argument” is also cited as a supposedly unanswerable objection to the view that embryos are people, but all it proves is that humans have two modes of reproduction: sexual and asexual. Strictly, the parents of a monozygotic twin are actually its grandparents. The parent is the one-cell embryo that cleaved to form two new human individuals.
The helplessness of human fetuses and infants: information vs. meta-information
Finally, many of my readers have pointed out that an embryo / fetus / infant will never grow into a rational human adult without lots of external assistance: babies need to be nourished, nurtured and taught to talk and think, before they can reason as adults do. This is perfectly true, but what it overlooks is the distinction between information (which a human individual receives from other people in the course of its development) and meta-information (i.e. the genetic and neurological instructions in that individual’s brain and body, which enable him/her to process the information it receives, and make sense of it all). What makes us inherently valuable, I would suggest, is not information as such, but the meta-information which enables us to process that information.
There’s a lot more in my e-book for those who are interested. At any rate, the point I wanted to make is that you don’t have to be religious in order to oppose infanticide. The practice of killing newborn babies, even severely disabled ones, has no place in any human society.
The slippery slope is real
The slippery slope is all too real, and if we legalize the practice of euthanizing severely handicapped newborn babies, it will warp our attitudes towards children, causing us to view them as less than fully human. Abuses will inevitably creep in if euthanasia is legalized, as Dr. Byock warns us, citing the example of the Netherlands:
One need only look at Belgium and the Netherlands to glimpse the future. In both countries suicide by self-administration of life-ending drugs and euthanasia by doctor-administered lethal injections have been available for several decades and are increasingly prevalent. According to the annual report from the Dutch Euthanasia Review Committees 3.9% of all deaths in the Netherlands were intentionally hastened, including 5,277 people who were euthanized by physicians. [4] Dutch people are being euthanized at their request by their public health system for non-terminal conditions which include chronic pain, tinnitus or blindness. In excess of 50 of those euthanized in 2015 suffered from psychiatric disorders. Many mentally ill patients who request euthanasia suffer from personality disorders and socially isolation; depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorders are common. [5 – Olie E, Courtet P. The Controversial Issue of Euthanasia in Patients With Psychiatric Illness. JAMA. 2016;316(6):656-657.]
Dr. Byock is writing about the elderly here, but the same potential for abuse exists with the very young, who are also helpless and vulnerable.
To sum up: euthanizing newborn babies who are severely disabled might sound “compassionate,” but it is a barbarous practice that will not relieve any suffering, and will serve only to dehumanize us all, by deadening us to the horror of destroying a human being.
What do readers think? Over to you.
Recommended reading: Deliberate termination of life of newborns with spina bifida, a critical reappraisal by T. H. Rob de Jong. (Child’s Nervous System, 2008 Jan; 24(1): 13–28. Published online 2007 Oct 10. doi: 10.1007/s00381-007-0478-3.)
You should try reading for comprehension. My first sentence just said that I was fine if you didn’t want to answer my questions. My second statement was just a statement of fact. It is difficult to admit when your views are logically inconsistent. It was you who jumped to the conclusion that I was referring to you.
By the way. You still haven’t answered the questions. feel free to jump in. The water’s warm.
My mother was pressured to have an abortion 2 times, and I have to tell you it was a tough decision on many levels. She and Dad were in a 3rd world country, and because she was suffering such intense hyperemesis gravitarum she could have died before giving birth, the doctors suggested an abortion on two of her pregnancies. Mom and Dad decided to put mom at risk and she gave birth to my sisters. The third try she had a much wiser and skilled doctor who alleviated the symptoms by putting her on IV since she couldn’t eat. Common sense!
The family was lucky since that sort of malnourishment could have been disasterous for the fetuses.
All this to say, I feel for those being confronted with decisions like our family’s.
People euthanize the pets we care for that are suffering, so it’s understandable the same policy will be viewed as compassionate to do this to a human.
The euthanasia issue is nuanced because the intent isn’t always one of malice. Scott Adams was horribly grieved his beloved father couldn’t be euthanized.
Unless one believes in Christian teachings about the specialness of humanity and Christ’s words : “Happy are those who more” and “we must bear our cross each day” and Paul’s words “Our momentary light affliction is building for us a weight of glory”, then outside the Christian viewpoint, but still even within a Theist viewpoint, it is hard not to justify mercy killings because it feels ethical.
Jordan Peterson pointed out that when we consider matters, life on Earth in general is a tragedy. Thus, in the view of some, death is the cure for this tragic condition. To their mind, it is like going to sleep after a weary day.
When people hire a hit man to kill someone they are usually charged with murder, seems comparable if you believe the fetus is the same as a born person.
And if your taxpayer dollars go to fund any part of it you are clearly complicit. So yeah, the death penalty is sounding better and better.
Acartia asks:
1) Does a fetus have the same right to life as you or I?
Answer: Yes.
2) If abortion is made illegal, should a woman who has an abortion be charged with first degree murder?
Answer: No. To be guilty of first-degree murder, you have to intend the death of a human being, and you have to be acting freely and knowingly. Many (probably most) women who have abortions in Western countries mistakenly think the fetus is not a human being. What’s more, their decision to abort is often made under a good deal of pressure. See this very fair-minded article here. Or see here:
Or here:
After reading Sal’s moving testimony above, I would just like to add one thing: I believe women who are at severe medical risk from continuing with their pregnancies should have the option of abortion. That’s a matter of basic human decency.
I’m sure he did. But if he concluded that the woman is not equally culpable, the woman who has to take the first step, the woman who has to make the appointment, the woman who has to listen to the doctor explain what the process entails, the woman who has to sign a document acknowledging that she knows all this, then he is either a certifiable moron or he has a very low opinion on the intelligence and emotional stability of women. Where do you stand on this? Or is this another question that you won’t answer?
What if your thesis became mainstream and women “knew” the fetus is a human being?
wouldn’t abortion be first degree murder?
Yep life is sacred until it isn’t.
No, life is always sacred. But sometimes the right to life is forfeited. Explain to me how an infant can forfeit her right to life?
Ah, you beat me to it.
dazzabortion – women think their babies aren’t human and that’s why they kill them.
VJT, are you seriously suggesting that most women who opt for abortion are of diminished capacity? Are you sure you want to go down that road?
OK. Let’s take your argument to the next level. Let’s say the woman is a medical doctor. Obviously, she is well aware that a fetus is a human being. Should she be charged with first degree murder? The “pressure” argument doesn’t carry any weight. It might play out in sentencing, but not in the charge. But with mandatory minimum sentences, she is still looking at a minimum of 25 years.
So, again, how do you rationalize the right to life of the fetus with the reluctance to charge a woman who has an abortion with first degree murder? When we find irrefutable evidence that someone planned and executed the killing of anyone from one day old to 100 years old, we charge them with first degree murder. Presumably because of the violation of the right to life of the person killed. If the fetus has the same right to life, why don’t you think the same consequence should be enforced for those who end its life?
Is there some reason Acartia is posing these questions here at TSZ rather than on an Islamic forum?
Because the answers from Christians are the same? Although, it is difficult to get a good sample size when only VJT has enough honesty to answer.
Still no answers from you? Colour me surprised.
And the government decides when that right is forfeited or does religion decide?
And this right to life, what if relative requires something of yours to live, like your blood , ,without your blood they will die.You won’t probably won’t die but it will take a toll on you. If you are unwilling can the government force you to comply because the relative has a right to life?
.
Does this infant have the right to the most sophisticated equipment and constant monitoring and drugs to acheive a vegetative state as her right to life?
Who decides, the government or the person who wanted this child enough to carry through a probably difficult pregnancy and has lived with the reality of having your baby never having a chance for any life beyond barest level of existence?
Do we all have unlimited medical care as a right to life?
We welcome all religious beliefs equally.
Murder is a legal term. If the law doesn’t define something as murder, then it isn’t.
That’s a separate issue from whether something is a sin, or is immoral, or whether it should be illegal. It might advance the discussion to avoid conflating legal, religious and ethical concepts.
Technology has made it possible to produce a human being from almost any arbitrary human cell. My own opinion is that this makes the potential human argument rather unworkable. A fetus has no potential that is not present in any body cell.
We give embryos special social and religious significance, but that is the outcome of cultural history.
Seemed that way to me.
It would depend if an abortion was legally the same as felony murder, if so then the fact she did not consider it a human being would not matter.
Think about all those crimes committed by in vitro fertilization. Would a woman be obligated to carry every one of her humans beings( fertilized eggs) to birth?
To me, this has always seemed rather simple. Anyone who insists that their opinion be forced on others, should have no difficulty having others’ opinions forced on them.
In some lands, abortion is forbidden. In others, abortion is mandatory. And presumably, some countries protect the freedom of their citizens to make their own personal decisions. What sort of country do we wish to be?
If VJT is comfortable with society FORCING him to abort, whether he likes it or not, THEN he earns the right to do unto others.
Shhh… Don’t tell newton and Acartia! They are too chickenshit to take their crusade to some lands.
And any woman who opted to have an IUD inserted would be charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
And what about pharmaceutical companies that sell the morning after pill? Mass murder?
What about women who drink and smoke during pregnancy? Assault?
And maybe we should ban pregnant women from flying because of the increased radiation levels. Or driving in a car.
T o take a human life is murder unless in self defence or judicial punishment.
Now what about these cases.
If removing life support then its the body itself that kills itself. its not murder.
it is a special case. i remember reading about the battle of Imo Jimo. a American soldier begged another american soldier to kill him because of jis injuries. He did.
in these death/pain/ cases it must be seen the unnaturalness of death has changed the moral boundaries.
I don’t see it as morally wrong like abortion or war or not doing capital punishment.
It is morally wrong not to use capital punishment? I know I am going to regret asking, but what is morally wrong with not using capital punishment?
Why travel? I live in Texas
OSHA violation.
So you’re OK with 2nd degree murder? (That doesn’t seem to work if the abortion is premeditated.) Manslaughter? Or some kind of intentional negligence (is there such a thing?) resulting in involuntary homicide? You say the woman doesn’t know–but what if she DOES!? What if the woman has the abortion knowing full well that the embryo IS a little human being? Should there be testimony as to the state of her knowledge at the trial?
That could get kind of complicated and cumbersome. I suggest we just settle what the penalty should be right here for simplicity’s sake. Maybe eight years in a Federal penitentiary with the possibility of parole after two? Cut out all the biz about what the woman “knows.” Make sense to everyone?
Yes.
It would be up to the state concerned to determine what range of punishments were necessary.
I would say that whether or not abortions are morally wrong depends on each individual case. Without knowing the circumstances how could anyone judge how wrong it was?
But every state already has an array of punishments for the individual crimes. What I am asking is whether she should be charged with first degree murder. For the unnatural death of an individual we already have a gradation of charges ranging from negligence causing death through to first degree (premeditated) murder. We see this as sufficient to cover the unnatural death of any individual from their first to their last breath. Where the inconsistency exists is in KF’s and WJM’s assertion that a woman having an abortion shouldn’t be covered by one of these. In any other instance, a person who plans and executes the death of another individual, a charge of first degree murder is laid. If a fetus truly has the same right to life as any other individual, I don’t see how you can lay a different charge and still assert that it has the same right to life as you and I.
If abortion is illegal by law then I do not see why the relevant judicial system could not award a penalty up to first degree murder to those directly involved depending on individual circumstances. And without knowing the individual circumstances and being thoroughly familiar with the laws of the state or country how could one possibly answer whether or not a woman should be charged with first degree murder.
But that would be for the courts to decide. I am more concerned with the moral aspect rather than the legal aspect.
Every unnatural death is treated on a case-by-case basis. What I am trying to get a handle on is why most pro-lifers are so hesitant to charge women who have abortions with first degree murder. Assuming that they believe that a fetus from conception onward has the same right to life as you and I, how can they justify not charging most women who have abortions with first degree murder.
If a woman hires someone to kill her baby, the courts do not hesitate to lay first degree murder charges. If a woman hires someone to kill her cheating husband, first degree murder charges are laid. If a woman hires someone to kill her ailing parent against that parent’s wishes, first degree murder charges are laid. Yet, if a woman hires someone to kill her fetus, most pro-lifers do not feel that first degree murder charges against the woman are warranted. This is simply not logically consistent.
The charge that is laid in all unnatural deaths is based on the facts. In all cases, if the death is premeditated, and there is irrefutable evidence of this premeditation, the charges will be first degree murder. I am not aware of any exceptions to this. And an abortion is definitely a premeditated act. The temporary insanity clause is a very weak defence in this case because an abortion is not something that is done on the spur of the moment, or on a whim. Diminished capacity? Possibly. But there is no way that the majority of women would meet that criteria. Self defence? Again, the woman would have to prove that she believed that the fetus was intending to do her harm. And if she can prove this, she clearly falls under the diminished capacity defence.
I definitely think pregnant women should not be allowed to visit The Skeptical Zone.
Acartia writes:
In a similar vein, walto writes:
Let me answer you both by saying that I am a pragmatist. My over-riding concern is to save the lives of unborn children who pose no medical threat to their mothers, who are carrying them. Such children are human beings, and they are also innocent non-aggressors. The law should recognize their right to life.
On strict moral grounds, there may be a case for prosecuting some mothers who choose to have abortions. Frankly, I have no interest in doing so. First, enacting laws which punish mothers for having abortions may prove counter-productive, and increase the number of clandestine abortions. Such draconian laws won’t help save the lives of unborn children, which should be our top concern. Second, being a man, I have no first-hand knowledge of how stressful the experience of pregnancy can be. Who am I to point the finger of blame at a desperate woman who attempts to procure an illegal abortion? My primary concern is to save the child and alleviate the mother’s distress of mind.
A woman who kills a newborn baby is another matter. Being a parent, I am familiar with the anxieties that the responsibilities of parenthood can bring. Nevertheless, I feel absolutely no sympathy towards those parents who react to the stress they are under by taking it out on their baby. That’s an abominable thing to do. Anyone who has a heart could not fail to love their own child, particularly when they can see and hold that child. So I believe it’s perfectly appropriate for the law to punish parents who kill their newborn babies.
VJ, I don’t know if this has been covered, but I have to ask: are you okay with using technology (high or low) to prevent pregnancy?
So i guess we are back OT. While everyone here will agree that parents should always love and protect their children, your OP deals with the unusual (and thankfully rare) cases in which an infant is expected to die soon with only a very poor quality of life remaining.
Are you saying that parents and physicians that decide to euthanise a newborn child should always be subject to criminal prosecution, without exception? And do I understand correctly that you believe such decisions are taken with selfish motivation rather than in the interest of the infant?
Fixed that for ya!
What does the law say? Didn’t you even read the link I posted?
If it recognizes this right it must also punish those who ignore this right. If not, what is the point of any law?
But the law does not care whether or not you have an interest in doing so. It is only concerned with whether or not a law has been broken. Surely killing a human being that has an equal right to life is a crime.
BY simply making them illegal you have increased the number of clandestine abortions. But this is a non-argument. The current abortion rates are lower than they were before Roe v Wade, so their legal status does not appear to have any impact on the rate at which fetuses are aborted.
There is no evidence that laws against murder and manslaughter reduce these rates either.
Nonsense. You also have no first hand knowledge of how stressful the experience of being a new mother can be. You can only speak on the stress you had as the father of a newborn. And only the ones that you experienced. Not the stresses that others had.
The fetus either has the same rights to life as you and I, or it doesn’t. If it does, then it is entitled to the protections that we all enjoy and anyone who ends this life should be charged accordingly. If you want a different set of charges and penalties to be imposed on those who participate in an abortion then you have to acknowledge that the fetus is not entitled to the same right to life that we are.
As a moral nation, it is our duty to return desperate pregnant girls to the back-alley butchers as god intended. Praise Jesus.
Last year my father-in-law reached the end of his life, after several years of ever worsening cancer and many secondary ailments. He knew he was dying, and at times when the pain became unbearable he would actively express the hope that death would take him soon.
He called the family together and we discussed the options (this was in The Netherlands). He chose palliative sedation and switching off of the feed tubes.
His doctor came (he was at home), put him on the infuse and switched on the pump. We were all sitting around his bed and we spoke with him, as he slowly drifted off. I think it took nearly an hour for him to fall into a deep sleep. From that point on no food or drink was administered to him anymore.
It took 3 days for him to die, mercifully unaware that his body was being starved and dehydrated.
My question is, do people see a difference between starving and dehydrating someone to death, and giving them an injection that would achieve the same outcome in seconds rather than days? Surely letting a helpless person die by not giving them drink and food is just as much murder as injecting them with poison? Why allow the one and not the other?
Mung,
I’m skeptical.
You certainly have a way with words, Mung.
Sure I did. But look, here is another one.
and another one
Just some top hits from google, and please note the complete absence of any mention of consent by the patient. I think it is safe to use the term for neonates as well.
Mung,
Now, I can tell you are strongly opposed. And that’s fine. But I would appreciate some arguments to go along with your sneers. To help you, here is the disease that set off the discussion fifteen years ago, epidermolysis bullosa:
link
So tell me, do you consider the parents that asked for an ending to the torment of their child murderers? Is that an honest portrayal of these people?
Corneel, that is a really tough one. We have a kid in the Ottawa area with EB. He is 17 and suffers terribly. But if you ask him, he is glad for his life. He would obviously prefer not to have EB, but he has not known any different.
We have the great right to exist on earth and not be deprived of this. Then to kill us is evil.
So too not execute a murderer is to dismiss the victims right to exist and right to justice for the great evil/;oss done.
The state not executing people is immoral and illegal. Thats why a person can kill a murderer on sight.
I don’t suggest doing it but it could be done. Contract has been broken when the state does not punish those who hurt us. So back to nature.
God said murderers were to be killed.
Not doing capital punishment is complicity in murder of that victim.
Thats why when they don’t execute murderers PRETTY SOON there is no reason to keep them in jail long or at all. It does nothing. Justice is not served for such a evil thing by jail. its truly meaningless. In Canada they hardly get 15-20 years.
if that.
Thank you.
No mention of the Netherlands in the index. You’re from the Netherlands, right, so why not talk Dutch law.
Also disregards Dutch law. Is there a reason you wish to ignore the law of your own country?
Under Dutch law? Man, you were the one who pointed out the requirement for consent. HERE now you wnt to act as if that never took place. Sheesh.
Now you want to walk that back. [ETA: you’re the one who chose to use caps to emphasize that point, lol.]
I’m opposed to the way you and others here have tried to frame the debate and the way you’re so willing to abandon the same Dutch law that you started off quoting.
Under Dutch law why wouldn’t it be murder?
He also said to kill homosexuals, adulterers and women who weren’t virgins on their wedding night.
Thankfully only barbaric countries allow capital punishment.
Thankfully you finally admit your bias.
According to Acartia, the United States of America is a “barbaric country.” And yet he marvels about why he gets banned at UD.
Thank the Queen that Canada has never collaborated with the U.S. LoL!
How is a statement of fact a bias? Let’s look at the facts. The countries with the most executions in 2015 were, in order, China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the US. That is some fine company you keep.