h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Euthanasia (or assisted suicide) is an issue of human relationships and in particular our relationships to the established powers of our society, and like all such relationships this one revolves around power and control. In our daily lives there are very few desicions that we are allowed to make in which state and secular authorities do not have some kind of influence be it direct or indirect. We are told at what age we may marry, what age we may become sexually active, what substances we can and cannot ingest and which activities are legal and which are criminal. Until recently we were also told what sexual orientation we had profess to be and what religion we had to follow (and in some parts of the world this is still the case). Add to these secular rules another set of religious ones if a person is that way inclined and you have a very complex code by which to live.

In the past the state and the church have worked in concert to exert their control over the individual with threats of an eternity in hell after a round of punishment in this life. In the past it was a capital offence to try to take one's own life; you could be executed if you failed! Suicides were seldom burried in consecrated ground and their eternal souls were in for it in the next life as far as the church was concerned. The basic reasoning behind this was that as God gave you life it was a blasphemous act to end that life before God decided that it was time for you to snuff it. Of course the fact that the church liked its flock to be docile and obediant, just like the state prefers its subjects or citizens is no mere coincidence. If a person takes their own life or decides that they have had too much pain and suffering then they have defied the power of the establishment and if many do this then the fat cats at the top are in serious trouble.

In the modern day and age this translates into much the same thing, a fear of the state that the individual may at some time come to exert significant power over their own person. Even at the dawn of the 21st century the state and the ailing organised religions of the world labour under the illusion (be it consciously or unconsiously) that they actually own and therefore can control the private individual on a fundamental level. Our society suffers from an intrenched dogma left over from the days that Christianity was taken as read which has retarded our thinking on basic human rights in may areas.

Cases of assisted suicide are investigated and prosecuted in this country as a matter of course. Doctors claim that as the hippocratic oath requires them to "do no harm" they cannot justify allowing a patient to expire under their care. All, it seems, is jusitified in the fight to keep a human being alive. We attatch ourselves to machines, swallow pills and potions to achieve this end. But there are so many cases where the drugs have side-effects that turn the patient into mindless zombies, so many times when the person kept alive is in constant pain and suffering from terrible humiliation as their body fails them. Of course some in this situation are beyond reason and cannot be responsible for their own selves. But why must we deny a fully cognicent human being the right and the dignity to end their own life when the time comes?

The cruelest irony is that when a dog reaches the point that life and pain are as one we take the decision to put the animal out of its misery because we believe that it is incapable of making such a choice for itself and this is the most compassionate course of action. But when the cases of a fully cognicent human being who wants to end his or her own life for the exact same reasons pops up the law is against this. We see the same tired and weak arguments wheeled out and we once more fail to move forwards in terms of human rights.

The simple fact is that as modern human beings in a modern society we should by law have the right to choose how we live our lives on a fundamnetal level. This requires the right to religious freedom, the freedom to choose our sexual orientation, the right to contraception for all, the freedom to abortion without fear of reprisal from religious bigots and the right to end our lives when we judge that the time has come.

A very thought provoking and intelligent post.

If only more people would actually read this sort of message, and really try to understand it.

Regards

good post

Well said!

I think there is more to the church’s reason in declaring suicide a sin. Right back through history they’ve handed common people the dream of eternal bliss in heaven, to make up for the miserable and impoverished life they suffer on earth. If there was no consequence i.e. eternal damnation, to taking your own life, how many ordinary people would have wanted to live out their lives of servitude, pain and suffering, when heaven awaited? The rich and fortunate would have had to do their own dirty work.

No reasonable person can have any objection to legalised euthanasia, as long as proper and stringent precautions are in place to avoid abuses being committed. As others have said, you wouldn’t allow a dog to suffer a lingering and painful death, so why should humans? The death should also be recorded as a consequence of the illness suffered and not listed as suicide. I can see a situation in the future whereby an individual will want to die, but will carry on to the bitter end so that their families are not denied a life insurance payout (most contracts exclude deaths from suicide).

The vast majority of the rules and regulations that the faiths that derive from the "book" have done the same, be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim or any other take on an archaic and outdated text that has been doctored to the requirements of the current powers that be and misquoted like a proverbial bastard.

What grinds my corn is the fact that I live in a society that still clings to the decaying remnants of a Christian faith as some small part of it's laws when I am not a Christian myself. Why should I be required to live under the laws of a religion that means nothing to more to me than an interesting aside as to how some people seem to see the world as one big fairground ride for the privaledged white male members of society?

Answer me that.

You have a point as far as practicing a belief other than Christian or as an atheist. Those too are discussed the most.

You should be allowed to practice your own religion, follow your faiths particular traditions in this final way! There must be areas that the medical profession is overstepping their bounds in. The Christian Scientist are allowed to refuse treatments without debate when aged, especially. There are just as many not in any of the categories above.

In the end you are at the mercy of the law of the land and the Dr. in charge at that time.

You're not actually subject to 'Christian law' per se. The Ten Commandments form the basis of laws in a lot of countries, but we've gone from ten to about a billion 'commandments'...with subsections as well. You no longer get stoned to death for adultery, ploughing on a Sunday, or worshipping idols for instance, so it follows that you're not governed by Christian law.

Where in the bible does it say "Thou shalt not park on double yellow lines, lest thee get a £16 fine"? Heheh