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Yesterday the belgium government accepted and finalized a new law that handles the right of euthanasia for belgium people. After Holland Belgium is only the second country that tries to handle this by a federal law. Its said to give people the right to decide about their own death, if they are incurable sick, or their closest relatives can decide it if the patient himself is not able to anymore. In addition mentally ill persons (whatever that means!) are given this right as well.

I must admit I did not look for more information about it but what I heard in the news, so please dont expect any detailed explaination to this belgium laws. But I think we still can talk about the ethics and what we think about it.

Maybe here in Germany we're are a bit more sensible to just the word euthanasia then the rest of the world due to the use of it in our history. But still I think its about time for all nations to come to terms on this topic. So I appreciate the belgium decision a great deal.

I feel every human being should be granted the right to decide about his own life AND death just by himself if he wants to. In these times where the medical techniques reached a point where its possible to keep an about dead body alive for ever if necessary, its absolutely needed to talk about it with an open mind and without false morals or uptight ethics. Also it takes away the burden from MDs or any medical personal involved. Imagine a doc who once swore this oath to save lifes for as long as he can, who now got a patient begging at him to help him die. After german law if he does he is a killer and will be locked up for 20+ years. This seems somehow rediculous to me.

Of course there have to be ways to control any use of these laws (e.g. what does 'metally ill' mean, or, who is the one who actually kills the person if he/she cant do it for him/herself, how to doublecheck its indeed his/her own will), but I absolutley dont understand the usual outcries from the conservative corner, who hurried to announce they're going to appeal before the european cort at once!

Comments?

After decades of construction my website is finally up an running: www.kkds.de

This subject is very important to me...
I must think and collect....then I will respond.

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Hellooooo?

Anybody out there?

After decades of construction my website is finally up an running: www.kkds.de

Yes, but I agree with you and have nothing else to add, so...
:-)

When life hands you a lemon, that's 40% of your RDA of vitamin C taken care of.

As you said the question is whether one should have the right to decide over their own life. Generally reason says "yes". Me, you, all the people on this board should have this right. But me and you aren't the group of people that this discussion applies too. It gets tougher when it comes to mentally or phsyically very ill persons. The question probably isn't yes or no, it's when such a wish should be granted. "Whenever it is stated" is no acceptable answer in my eyes.

It's somewhat weird that there is so much resistance from the Christian and conservative factions for the general idea of euthanasia, as I was taught in my roman-catholic lessons at school, that every human being has the freedom of choice, even if the choice is to abandon God completely.

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

I feel each of us has the right to Euthanasia if we choose, if we are terminal, suffering, and no prospects for quality of life.

Some of the arguements against it:
l. Someone in a coma on costly life sustaining circumstances, the insurance companies or organ harvesters could force the issue.

2. Pre-natal or newborn born with a disease such as Tay-Sachs.

3. Anyone not able due to illness or mental capacity to understand the choices.

4. The religious aspect.

What I fail to understand....is why do we have to deal with those issues right now??

I feel that anyone who is terminal and suffering beyond any quality of life should have the choice and the means to end their life rapidly and as comfortably as we have the means to do so.

I think a living will should be a binding legal contract, not something that can be negated by family members or others once the patient has lost the ability to plead their cause.

If we had euthanasia, I don't think many would suffer to that point.

I personally think it is a God given right........on the cross....after suffering to a point his humanity allowed him to ask for release from His Father.......His father released him from the suffering....(strictly the view I have on my religious upbringing)

Why should any human beings' transition from life to death be to the point of terror from drowning in your own fluids, helpless, dignity stripped away, tortured with pain in some cases??

I also believe, if you do not wish euthanasia, there should be a legally binding contract to that effect that cannot be changed by family, insurance companies or medical practioners.

But I think we should have the legal choice......

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

This post was edited by gentledeepwaters on May 18, 2002.

Martin, you have said everything, and pretty well. I fully agree with you. I will just try to put my point of view, which is no different then yours, in my own words.

Every individual should be given the right to die when they want to. When the pain and the suffering reaches a limit then it is best for the person who is suffering to take this decision.

Even if it's because of the medical costs, or the suffering of the near and the dear ones, it's the person who is going through all the pain, shall be the one to decide whether to end his/her life or not.

I somehow feel that any other person shall not be given the right to decide on behalf of anyone. This is something that does not sound right to me. This has a lot of scope to be abused. If the person is not in a position to decide, whether it is due to a terminal illness or the person is mentally ill, if anyone else has to make the decision, then it is plain murder to me. If the person who is suffering is oblivious to pain (people in coma, mentally ill people), then I am sure that person does not want to die.

Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye opener.

From Dubyaman:-

FYI, the person shown as POTOMan is India's Home Minister - LK Advani, who is supposed to be the leader of the right-wing in India, and is a strong anti-muslim. The above strip is in response to the riots in India which took the toll to over 3000 last month.

Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye opener.

the point, martin, is...
are they able to make an informed, coherent & sane decision to die? if so, no problem...
otherwise we get back to euthanizing the mentally incompetent, against their wishes...
your people tried this once before and it didn't work out...
I have no problem with taking mad dogs out of the gene pool...but only after a fair trial...jeffrey dahmer or charlie manson for example...
otherwise, I think simple sterilization would be sufficient to improve the species
"think of it as evolution in action"
larry niven

I have no problem with taking mad dogs out of the gene pool...but only after a fair trial...jeffrey dahmer or charlie manson for example...
otherwise, I think simple sterilization would be sufficient to improve the species

IMHO this is the exactly wrong approach to this discussion. I dont think we should even touch arguments like "cleaning gene-pool" or "improving the species". Thats in no way the reason for any such laws. Its not about to decide who may or may not live on, but only to give everybody the chance to leave this life in dignity if he decides so.
Anything else is murder, even killing Dahmer or Manson under this argumentation would have been murder! No, dont even think about deciding someone elses fate, whoever he is, whatever he did. We're only talking about helping someone who made this decicions for himself, not a single step more.

After decades of construction my website is finally up an running: www.kkds.de