2008 Woodie Awards
Let's Make Suicide a Capital Offense
It's painless, but it brings on many changes.
Susan Maltby
Issue date: 3/16/05 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
Life is nothing if not an endless abundance of choices. By nature, free will is what separates humans from all other living creatures.
People can choose between paper and plastic, Coke or Pepsi and when it comes to their very existence, everyone is born with the choice to live or die. With life's more serious choices come clashes with legal and moral codes as defined by one's particular society and culture.
Recent right-to-die debates in America, sparked by the Florida court case between Terri Schiavo's husband and parents over whether to remove the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube, center on one main legal question: Should this nation or its states give citizens a legal right to die?
The question itself is pointless. There is no arguable reason to adjust the legal system of any country to advocate death for its people under any circumstances. In most industrialized nations including this one, citizens already have the right to refuse medical treatment. People can simply make their wishes known with a 'Do Not Resuscitate' order and make it clear to caregivers and family members that they refuse feeding tubes or other life-sustaining procedures. Done and done.
People who do not outline any measures in advance to expedite their departure from this realm are choosing life by default, no matter how hopeless, helpless or heartless that life may be.
The legal system and medical community can't, by definition, advocate and approve death. Right-to-die lobbyists are therefore asking for an impossible hypocrisy.
Inculcating society with the idea that government and the health care industry need to take a stand, lobbyists argue with emotion and pomposity that their debate is profoundly important, involving the value of life, the meaning of compassion and the proper balance that state law should strike between personal autonomy and protecting lives.
The truth is their point is moot. When it comes to protecting lives, there's no balance - society either does or it doesn't.
Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia are unnecessary and the costs of addressing the issue within the legal system will cost a lot more than a jug of Jack Daniel's and a six-pack of Sominex.
Why would someone care whether suicide is legal? Perhaps family members don't want to lose out on a life insurance policy. Lobbyists should instead argue with insurers to gain benefits in cases where terminally ill, mentally competent adults with less than six months to live wish to end their own lives without causing their family undue financial hardship.
There is no need to create laws to legalize suicide. People who truly wish to end their lives for whatever reason can already do so privately without repercussion.
After all, choosing to end your own life can only be followed by one possible worldly consequence: Death.
People can choose between paper and plastic, Coke or Pepsi and when it comes to their very existence, everyone is born with the choice to live or die. With life's more serious choices come clashes with legal and moral codes as defined by one's particular society and culture.
Recent right-to-die debates in America, sparked by the Florida court case between Terri Schiavo's husband and parents over whether to remove the brain-damaged woman's feeding tube, center on one main legal question: Should this nation or its states give citizens a legal right to die?
The question itself is pointless. There is no arguable reason to adjust the legal system of any country to advocate death for its people under any circumstances. In most industrialized nations including this one, citizens already have the right to refuse medical treatment. People can simply make their wishes known with a 'Do Not Resuscitate' order and make it clear to caregivers and family members that they refuse feeding tubes or other life-sustaining procedures. Done and done.
People who do not outline any measures in advance to expedite their departure from this realm are choosing life by default, no matter how hopeless, helpless or heartless that life may be.
The legal system and medical community can't, by definition, advocate and approve death. Right-to-die lobbyists are therefore asking for an impossible hypocrisy.
Inculcating society with the idea that government and the health care industry need to take a stand, lobbyists argue with emotion and pomposity that their debate is profoundly important, involving the value of life, the meaning of compassion and the proper balance that state law should strike between personal autonomy and protecting lives.
The truth is their point is moot. When it comes to protecting lives, there's no balance - society either does or it doesn't.
Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia are unnecessary and the costs of addressing the issue within the legal system will cost a lot more than a jug of Jack Daniel's and a six-pack of Sominex.
Why would someone care whether suicide is legal? Perhaps family members don't want to lose out on a life insurance policy. Lobbyists should instead argue with insurers to gain benefits in cases where terminally ill, mentally competent adults with less than six months to live wish to end their own lives without causing their family undue financial hardship.
There is no need to create laws to legalize suicide. People who truly wish to end their lives for whatever reason can already do so privately without repercussion.
After all, choosing to end your own life can only be followed by one possible worldly consequence: Death.
