>> ^entr0py:
Yes, euthanasia is a scheme to keep terminally ill people from breeding. He's figured it out.


Damn those cancer sufferers f#cking like crazy and producing more and more cancer babies!!!111

Yes, euthanasia is a scheme to keep terminally ill people from breeding. He's figured it out.

> Makes me contemplate euthanasia on it's behalf.

Dont do it, Geo, losing you wont help this poor animal.

Sad giraffe. Makes me contemplate euthanasia on it's behalf.

What most people against euthanasia don't seem to understand, is that the person doing it, doesn't want to do it. At ALL!
But out of love, or simple human compassion, one would be willing to perform an action that will scar one self for life. Simply to help someone who is suffering a great deal.
I think that's all that needs to be said about euthanasia. It's the heaviest of sacrifices. For everyone involved.

Fear is a great motivator. With the way our economy is, I could say that "China will own your children." It would be true if you considered the mounting deficit.

However, can we guarantee that those people are getting both sides of the story? If Americans look upon opinion like a federal judge, we would certainly have alot more civility and frank discussion about political topics. But since they don't look for the truth with an unbiased viewpoint, we get people who think we are developing a nation of little boy rapers and euthanasia panels.

The bill should include a clause for involuntary euthanasia of certain politicians and media figures who knowingly and intentionally lie to the public in attempts to prevent its passage, rather than debating it on its actual merits.

Here it is, first post after 2yrs of lurking! After seeing that all those euthanasia rumors are still going around, I finally decided to give this a shot. I'll refrain from voting for myself on my first vid as I'd like my P to disappear on my own merit.

"...pro-life, which means anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia and silently favoring capital punishment."

Um, no, being pro-life does not mean you're anti-euthanasia and pro-capital punishment, moron.

Also, one does not need to be an atheist in order to be a libertarian.

And finally, not all libertarians are this boring and irritating.

>> ^imstellar28:
You are saying that corporate boycotts are too difficult. You think changing governmental policy is less so?

Actually yes. I also think it can be more fine grained. Boycotting car companies that charge extra for seat belts won't make them standard equipment, ever. Ask lots of people "should seat belts be required equipment on cars?", and you'll get an overwhelming vote in the affirmative.

Also, since it's law, there's no backsliding. No making them optional in bad economic times, no new companies who have some unproven alternative that's cheaper, etc. If a superior safety device comes along, there's a whole series of regulatory agencies who can test it, review it, and approve it.

Perhaps there's an argument to be made saying seat belts and airbags shouldn't be specifically required, but instead earning a 4+ star rating from an IIHS crash test, but I don't see operating only by boycott as being a superior method for improving car safety.

Cultural changes don't happen overnight, they happen over years, decades or even centuries. Unfortunate for those living during that time period, but thats the reality of societal evolution.
However, when the government is in the way, cultural evolution grinds to a halt. How can you evolve if you are jailed for doing so?

I agree that it takes time, and that government can be in the way. On social issues, I'm already essentially a libertarian though. I'm a touch different in that I'd rather have government give positive affirmation of rights (gay marriage recognized nationally as legal, as opposed to government not recognizing marriage at all, just civil unions), but that's essentially just a semantic difference.

When it comes to more economic matters, I'm happy to call myself conservative in the sense that I'm okay with evolution being slowed down a bit. Not that I'm afraid of progress generically, but I think we should be careful about what we do, and make sure we've tested things thoroughly, and thought through all the implications before we go wild with a new technology.

For example, I'm in favor of bans on human cloning...for now. However, my reason for a ban would be so we have time to prepare a legal and ethical framework for the people created through such a process. I think the people who pushed that kind of a ban through had religion on their brains, and intend for it to last forever though. I doubt we'll see many bioethicists pushing for legislation covering guardianship, clone creation consent, etc. anytime soon.

I also hope someone is paying close attention to robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, etc. I'd hate for the first big breakthrough in self-replicating machines result in an unstoppable mechanical pest or virus.

Turns out I was looking too far ahead, I should've been worried about Credit Default Swaps to the same degree.

I'm not saying people only deserve they rights they can defend, I'm saying all people deserve the same rights. Start there, and let the culture catch up.
Governmental policy does not drive culture, nor has it ever - its the other way around. Why do you think I'm talking to you instead of my state representative?

On this we agree completely. I think we just disagree on where people's equal rights end.

Remember this video? I got to the end without disagreeing with anything they said. You're right that they left off the right to life, though that can be situationally controversial (abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, etc.) and it was supposed to be a happy feel good sort of presentation.

I think a right to life also includes the right to medical care, and access to preventative medicine, affordable healthy food, etc. I think paying for that is an issue, but I think we have a moral imperative to find a way to pay for it, in the same way we had a moral imperative to find a way to pay for manual labor once slavery was abolished.

okay, I'm an atheist, but I can't understand the harsh comments on here.

As far as allowing the child to live as long as they did, well, they probably didn't find out about his defects until it was too late for an abortion (not that they would've considered it, but I'm just making a point), and infanticide is just as illegal as euthanasia -- so there's no reason to blame the parents for the possibility of prolonged suffering.

There's also no reason to believe the child was suffering the whole time. The parents obviously spent the entirety of those 99 days completely focused on taking care of him as best possible.

I have no problem with the fact that they interpreted their experience through their faith. If it helps them to heal, than fine.

Now as an atheist, the way I interpret this is the remarkable capacity humans (have obtained from millions of years of evolution) have to love and care for children. The video was very touching and sad, but also beautiful.

As far as the beliefs of the parents, they really didn't specify, so for all we know they are moderate Christians, and not the extremist types. And in no way did they imply that his death was a miracle. I may not believe in miracles, but if they chose to believe that the time they spent with their child was a miracle, than fine. It doesn't mean that they're not aware of the contributions of medical science.

>> ^jonny:

Could I post a euthanasia vid so long as the patient was still speaking at the end of it? Or is the limit when his eyes close and he appears to be dead?


i have no problem with euthanasia videos. i think it can be a relevant, thought provoking topic. i think graphic videos of a biopolitical nature should certainly be allowed. though i dont really want to watch traumatic vehicle crashes with no other point but to say "hey, look at this fucked up thing someone filmed, bet that guys gonna die!" but noone is making me watch them either. i say the line should certainly be drawn at objectification/victimization/exploitation... but not videos of a newsworthy or educational value calling attention to such atrocities. (half my videos would be banned)

>> ^dag:
^that's an absurd technical reading - and goes against any reasonable interpretation of the guideline.

Of course it is. The point is that you need to draw the line somewhere, right? So, where is the line drawn? Because otherwise there will be disagreements like:

>> ^dag:
we're not seeing his death here, and it was not particularly graphic in any case.

Really? Not graphic? You just watched a man's neck snapped, just as cleanly as from a hanging. He fell from roughly 100 feet and landed squarely on his head, at which point his brain and spinal cord suffered irreversible damage. How much gore do you need to see before you consider it graphic?

It's like the (silly, I know) dagwood test for porn. Does it have to turn your stomach? Could I post a euthanasia vid so long as the patient was still speaking at the end of it? Or is the limit when his eyes close and he appears to be dead?

it seems that performing the surgery is avoiding the cure of this mental disease. The fact that the pacients want to be amputated as phisically healthy as they are is a sign of that disease and not a matter of medical ethics. next to this , euthanasia shouldn't even be considered an odd choice in the view of medicine and its ethics.

wouldn't it be better to put neurologists looking for brain damage on these pacients? or even looking for worms that control certain basic functions of the brain (which here would be to perceive the body as an integral part of the self)?

the assumption that psychiatry, and any other area of medicine possibly concerned with body dismorphia, is impotent to manage the pacients' integreal health seems utterly easy, careless and cinique (by integral, body is included, since the body suffers as a consequence of several mental conditions, take depression and attempted sucidide for example).

Reading through the thread, I have to say "me too" to what dft said and what joedirt said.

I'd add a smidge of KP, and say this is a weird conversation to start on NYE, but I notice it didn't stop the rest of the VS weirdos (myself included) from responding.

Mostly, I'm curious what you were looking for. If it was one of those "I simply can't understand why anyone disagrees with me" moments, and looking to many people who disagree to explain, I think dft and joedirt nailed the key points of the people on the other side of the abortion question. DFT covered the part that makes us so confused with the stereotypical "anti-abortion" activist, and joedirt explained why we're very pissed off about the way those same activists try to demonize the people on the other side.

The issue isn't about the "sanctity of life" or "respecting life" or "caring about life", it's about where and how laws can be used to effectively improve the quality of everyone's existence. The point of view of the pro-choice set is that things like criminalizing all abortions does more harm than good.

There's also a good many of us who question the timing of when the mix of sperm and egg make its transition to personhood. Specifically, we find ourselves feeling quite certain that it's not currently possible for someone to truly know with certainty when that transition happens -- we just don't know what that transition really even is.

Divisive arguments that try to paint us as cold murderers, who don't respect the "sanctity of life" are misguided at best. I've come to suspect that such "arguments" were intentionally designed to be divisive by people with a vested interest in keeping this divide from ever being bridged. People like politicians, and priests, who can benefit from groups of people who're "fired up" about an issue.

I tried to track down the fancy-schmancy latin name for the philosophy you described. I didn't find an exact match, but along the way I read bits of what Wikipedia has on ethics, and I think you'd find much of what's there interesting. Most of ethical philosophy boils down to trying to come up with a definition for "right" and "wrong", and what's there gives a sense of perspective on how many different ways you can approach just that basic question, without even getting mired in specifics like abortion law.

As for your question about murdering a friendless suffering person and whether it's ethical...I have to say the word "murder" screws the question up. By definition, murder is premeditated, malicious killing. That's not ethical, ever. If you mean "kill", I suspect the person getting killed probably still cares, otherwise it's euthanasia. Which is a whole other prickly moral situation.