To the Editor of the Irish Post:
Your Editorial “Hopeful Kate’s campaign for the right to die” is pernicious nonsense. We’re all going to die, but in the meantime have the right to life. Campaigning for death is the very antithesis of hope. You urge Dail Eireann to support Deputy Halligan’s campaign, which in the last Dail inspired his introduction of his “Die with Dignity Bill.”
Deputy Halligan last year also urged the Dail, in his own words, “to forget morality” and support abortion. We cannot forget morality and simultaneously retain principles and ethics. It seems to me that in jumping on Deputy Halligan’s hobby horses THE IRISH POST is appealing, if not to Men and Women of No Principle, to men and women happy to jettison principle.It is too early to judge the newly elected TDs. But the Irish media already have sufficient numbers riding Deputy Halligan’s hobby horses that, like Tom Pearce’s Grey Mare, of Widecombe Fair fame, they’re a bit overloaded. Perhaps though, Uncle Tom Cobley might be persuaded to dismount, to make room fo another load of Cobblers?
Yours faithfully
Donal Kennedy
In the 16th century a Papal Legate to Ireland remarked that every priest considered himself a bishop and every bishop considered himself a pope. Little appears to have changed other than that the laity have now got in on the act. Qui se trouve morveux se mouche.
I may be a Francophile, but alas am no Francophone.I suspect, Brian, that you are proffering
Caviare to the General. I was never more than a Petit Corporal in the Sunshine-soldiering
Sunday patriots of the FCA., in times which never tried my Dover Soles.
You underestimate yourself Dónal. After all le petit caporal conquered most of Europe. The French say if you feel your nose is dirty you should wipe it. We say, more prosaically if the cap fits wear it. Applies to.me as well as you. But I can’t agree with you here. You milk your cow and let others milk theirs. As the Kerryman says.
Indeed we all die. So why not face up to that instead of clinging to hope over reality.
If a person is coming to the end of their life and faces only deterioration and pain why should they not be able to die in a manner of their own choosing.?
Yes it is a difficult issue and protection for the rights of vulnerable people is key, but dismissing it as ‘pernicious nonsense’ without even trying to formulate an argument is silly.
If as you say people should be given to “die in a manner of their own choosing”, Gio, what are we saying to those who feel so depressed that the only way they can see out of their situation, is to take their own life?
Gearoid
You are right. As I said it is complex. But courts already listen to expert opinion on an individual’s state of mind so it is not unprecedented.
Provided strong safeguards are in place would you not see the case for being able to do this?
How many months of pain, or being hooked to a life support machine, or wearing a nappy would you be prepared to endure at the end of your life?
If the nappy’s the only thing, I’ll go for that. Wore one before, happy to do it again…
De gustibus non est disputandum!
How many times have we heard the promise of “strong safeguards” by the sponsors of pro-assisted suicide/euthanasia bills, Gio? The reality is alarmingly different when one examines the national trends in Europe and further afield where such legislation has been passed. In Belgium recently, a pair of deaf twin brothers were granted the “right” to be euthanized because of their fear of impending hereditary blindness . These brothers were in not in any immediate danger of having their lives cut short by a life threatening condition. This type of scenario is becoming all too common across the world and in 2014 Belgium slipped further into the moral morass by legally allowing children who have the “discernment” to request assisted suicide. In 2013, it was reported by the Royal Dutch Medical Association,that the Assisted Suicide bill passed in the Netherlands was used to put 650 babies out of their misery because their suffering was deemed too much. Where do we draw the line on this? This reeks too much of a nazi-like eugenics program even if the original idea in those countries was for a tightly monitored, restricted use of the laws concerned.
I agree with you that the issues start to get more complex once a patient encounters a lot of terrible pain and their quality of life is much reduced as a result. To be honest, I would not know what I would do If I ever was to find myself in such a situation. I would hope that the best medical care would be administered to ease any crippling pain. But undoubtedly the respect for life suffers greatly in a country when legislation supporting the anti-life agenda is allowed to gain a foothold and laws supporting it are passed.
The Nazis did not pioneer eugenics. They were not original thinkers. They did not invent
concentration camps or anti-semitism or notions of racial purity.
Ideas did not become bad because the Nazis followed them. They were already rotten.
Although rotten they are alive and well amongst people who consider themselves liberal.
The Nazis adopted ideas held by “advanced thinkers” in Britain, the USA and Scandinavia. Fabians,Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, W G Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Marie Stopes and others.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, Donal, erudite as ever but I never mean’t to convey the impression that the nazis invented/started eugenics programs. My intention was to compare the present day broadening of the qualification criteria of candidates for euthanasia or assisted-suicide across the western world and the people whom the nazis deemed to be surplus to requirements and fit only for extermination.
Gearoid
Are you saying you are against any form of assisted suicide in any circumstances, as it is the thin end of the wedge leading to a program of eugenics targetting the disabled or elderly?
Or do you believe there are some extreme cases where an individual might be allowed to choose to bring their life to an end?
You seem to be saying none ever, no matter what the circumstances.