Friday, November 16, 2012

Massachusetts voters give Question Two a bottle of pills

Fortunately, on November 6 Massachusetts voters put Physician-Assisted Suicide out of its misery:

Massachusetts Voters Reject Physician-Assisted Suicide Initiative

I was traveling in Boston a couple of weeks ago, and in Sunday Mass the priest read a letter from Cardinal O'Malley explaining Catholic teaching on assisted suicide and the sanctity of life. The firm opposition of the Church probably defeated the initiative.

Interestingly, Ted Kennedy's widow campaigned to oppose the initiative as well.

Mrs. Kennedy:

Question 2 turns [the] vision of health care for all on its head by asking us to endorse patient suicide — not patient care — as our public policy for dealing with pain and the financial burdens of care at the end of life. We’re better than that. We should expand palliative care, pain management, nursing care and hospice, not trade the dignity and life of a human being for the bottom line.


I wonder how she squares this act of mercy and wisdom with her late husband's execrable championing of abortion. There are few people in the U.S. who bear a more direct responsibility for protecting Roe v. Wade than Senator Kennedy. Yet his wife stands up for life-- courageously, I might add. Strange bedfellows.

But the future is grim. The assisted suicide vote was close-- 51%-49%, so in our rapidly paganizing society it is only a matter of time before killing sick and depressed and terminally ill people becomes an accepted part of medical practice, as killing children in the womb is accepted practice now.

Physicians as killers. What about this don't we understand by now?

May God help us. 

10 comments:

  1. Somwe genius uis going to bring up priest pedophilia scandals in 3..2...1...

    Joey

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  2. Sorry Joey, I know you really like it when people talk about raped little boys, but not today.

    I think my fellow citizens thought that this law made getting suicide pills just a tad too easy. I think if the law is tightened up just a bit, it will pass. I voted for it, but even I knew that making it that easy to get a suicide prescription could potentially lead to abuses.

    My understanding is that in places with similar laws, most of the people that obtain the prescription don’t get, or don’t use the pills. It looks like a lot of people get the prescription simply for peace of mind, for feeling like the have an option and some control over their dire situation.

    -KW

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    1. You live in Massachusetts too?

      TRISH

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  3. Assisted suicide is evil. No two ways.
    Also such a childish and cowardly method has great potential for abuse. Suicide pill in some one else's drink are homicide pills. Administering them under such circumstances would then make the 'doctor' and pharmacy staff potential accomplices to murder.
    What gets me is that ADULTS would consider this kind of law in the first place.
    It seems crazy to me that you have a federal government that is threatening (DOJ) to swoop into Colorado and Washington and jail pot growers for doing something that is now legal in their state - but don't say boo about killing off old and sick folks in the beds. I guess it's like they say: Follow the money.

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  4. You’ve got it backward Crusader. You’re the one who’s evil for forcing someone to suffer by denying them the liberty of taking their own life. It shouldn’t be up to you or the government to choose how a patient deals with their end of life suffering.

    On this, and just about every other issue, Christians are on the side of less freedom and liberty.

    -KW

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. KW,
    Denying someone the liberty to commit an act is not the same as assisting them.
    What is it with you subjectivist types that you cannot discern the simplest of moral equations.
    Let's be less cowardly shall we.
    Let's not hide behind childish myths of soft death and lets discuss a raw, brave death: A hanging.
    You, let's imagine, can no longer stand your life for one reason or another.
    Perhaps you are suffering an illness, or perhaps you are simply deeply depressed.
    You decide you want to kill yourself: To hang yourself.
    So you go out and get some rope and make a noose. Should I, for the the purposes of our example, as a friend kick away the stool for you? Should I get you the rope and tie the noose? If I were the rope merchant and you told me what it was for, should I sell it to you?
    Or should I, instead, try to talk you out of it or try to prevent you from doing harm to yourself.
    You confuse liberty with complicity.
    People CAN kill themselves currently.
    People CAN choose their death.
    You want state sanctioned death by means 'euthanasia'.
    You would put down grandma like a dog and say I am cruel - in fact you call me 'evil'. I say and act is evil, and you accuse me of BEING evil...while safely hiding behind your monitor, I might add.

    Further, you completely (very conveniently) dodged the point that this kind of thing WILL be abused.
    That people WILL administer these poisons or drugs to unwitting and unwilling victims. That governments WILL decide for people, and will convince people to take the "Roman way" out. Frightened, sick, lonely, and disabled people.
    Freedom? Don't make me laugh!
    You're an atheist and a reductionist. Don't hide behind metaphysical ideas like truth and freedom; They are as alien to your world view as purpose and meaning or good and evil.
    Yours is a bleak and grey world I am all too familiar with.
    No wonder you want the pills.
    God help you and all like you.

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  7. You want to force people to suffer the indignity of a painful withering death, and then pat yourself on the back for cherishing life. You can’t stand the thought of people living, dying, and behaving other than the way you think they should, and will do whatever you can to control them. You think the pinnacle of morality is contained in a two thousand year old fairytale. You are sick. Your religion warps your mind.

    There’s a dead woman and fetus in Ireland because she was refused an abortion by people who think they can and should control other people’s lives, just like you.

    -KW

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    1. Now I am sick! After a quick review, KW remembers that in his dogma evil is just subjective...so after a scramble I become 'sick'. Conveniently, you may note, the source of my illness (for once not simply 'random' or 'emergent'!) is the morality he rebels against and the religion he lives to hate.
      Or maybe it's doctor Egnor that is sick? or maybe the 90% of the 7 billion people on this earth who believe in an objective morality?
      No matter. So long as he can justify killing the week and vulnerable while bashing religion.
      No daddy issues there, folks. Pure reason.

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