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Home » Leader Index » Baroness Warnock
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How do you stop people feeling pressured by society or by relatives to commit euthanasia?
Submitted by: Debatewise | 9 votes for this..
0 comments | Topic: Politics | Report |
What safeguards can we put in place to ensure that greedy or selfish relatives don't pressure ill people to commit euthanasia?
Submitted by: Debatewise | 12 votes for this..
I understand that many people may not want to be a burden on their families in the event that they suffer from dementia but isn't there a problem that this will, in effect, impact on the poorest in society... Show more »I understand that many people may not want to be a burden on their families in the event that they suffer from dementia but isn't there a problem that this will, in effect, impact on the poorest in society who will feel obliged to 'opt for euthenasia' whilst the richer will not because they will know their families can afford to pay carers? Show less »
Submitted by: Daniel24 | 9 votes for this..
Why do you think people have the right to play God?
0 comments | Topic: Politics |
I don't really know what 'playing God' means? Is a doctor 'playing God' when he intervenes to save someone's life who would otherwise die (e.g. by putting in a pacemaker, or transplanting a healthy kidney, or is he doing so only when he intervenes to bring about death, by, say, switching off the breathing apparatus, or withdrawing the oxygen?
Would a change in the law give doctors too much power? How do you ensure any power they have is not abused?
Submitted by: Debatewise | 10 votes for this..
I think doctors already have far too much power. After all most people die in hospital and there it is the doctor's decision when life-sustaining interventions shall stop. Doctors take it for granted that it is for them to decide. Why to live if they genuinely don't want to? What is 'in the best interest of the patient’?
Why should someone have the right to decide when to die?
Why not, if they find (or know that they will soon find) their lives burdensome, futile, without pleasure and totally abhorrent to themselves? To whom do they owe a duty to continue?
How much influence do religious groups have in opposing the legalisation of euthanasia and how could they be brought on side, as it were?
Submitted by: naomi1 | 13 votes for this..
Religious groups have considerable influence. Especially Roman Catholics are very goo, through their bishops, at mobilising people into writing letters of protest, usually providing the actual wording of the letter, so one gets a hundred identical letters with different signatures. In the House of Lords, the Bishops are listened to respectfully when they speak on any matter of morality. Yet very few of them or other religious people in Parliament declare that they are speaking as their religion teaches them. They say a few words about the Sanctity of Life, but then go on to the main secular arguments, such as the danger of abuse, and particularly the threat they perceive to people who are disabled and whose lives are deemed (by others) not to be worth preserving. So it's quite difficult to assess the influence of religious conviction by itself. Most people who are religiously committed make no clear distinction between moral and religious arguments. They assume that their moral convictions are grounded on religion, or are somehow part of what God teaches. One ought to persist in asking them how they know they are right.
Were euthanasia to be made legal in the UK, who would have the final say on a patient dying? Next of kin, the doctor, a judge?
Submitted by: stevenb | 12 votes for this..
A patient who has asked to die must be examined by a psychiatrist or counsellor, and any family members or e.g. old retainers who will gain by the death must also be questioned. I think it would be possible to discover whether there was undue pressure.
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