You Gotta Fight, For Your Right...to Diiiiiiieeeee!
Neil Rudolph, together with Compassion & Choices, an organization that seeks to improve care and expand end-of-life choices, is launching a campaign called 'Peace at Life's End. Anywhere.'
I love how these organizations always have such gentle names!
Neil's parents were residents at an assisted living facility. Note that title carefully. Assisted living. That's going to be important in just a sec. His parents decided they were going to starve themselves to death by refusing all food and water so that they could die on their own terms. When their assisted living facility became aware of this plan, they insisted that his parents resume eating and drinking. When they refused, they were evicted. Their children thoughtfully provided a private residence where they could continue their self-imposed hunger strike, and where both Armond and Dorothy passed away a week later.
Soooo...the facility they were paying to help keep Armond & Dorothy alive refused to help them die, and their son Neil is bent out of shape about this. How strange. I'm pretty sure that if his parents had passed away from not being fed by the facility without their express desire to be starved, Neil would be pretty ticked off. Like, sue-you-for-all-you're-worth ticked off. But because his parents wanted to kill themselves, and believed that they had the right to do so, Neil's angry.
Never mind the fact that Armond & Dorothy didn't have the right to kill themselves, or at least the right to insist that others be complicit in their suicides. Enough of that silly talk. What we want to lobby for is a state and nation where not only can you decide to kill yourself whenever you want, others must be compelled to not simply allow you, but to actively assist you in the process. I'm sure that Neil would have expected all of his parents' other needs to continue to be tended to by their assisted living facility until they died. I'm sure he would still have expected them to be bathed and changed and otherwise treated with every dignity that we afford to living human beings.
Note that there is no mention of any particular issue that would prompt a decision to kill themselves. They were old. They had been through a lot. But those are criteria that I'm sure some folks would find pretty restrictive as well. If the old are allowed to kill themselves, why not others? Why should anyone who doesn't want to live, be prevented from demanding that others help them kill themselves? The logic is so...so...compelling.
And, if you get to the end of the article, they assure you that as horrible as starving yourself to death sounds, it's really a very nice way to die. So, no biggie. Right?
Or not.
Posted by Paul Nelson at 9/3/2011 7:23 PM 
Categories: Health, Theology, Life, Citizenship, Philosophy, Current Events
Categories: Health, Theology, Life, Citizenship, Philosophy, Current Events
What if the state signed off on it and the facility handed Neil a gun or syringe and said OK, "take care of it." I wonder if Neil would go ahead with it? Is he that committed to their right to die? Seems to me Neil feels his parents are a burden and would like things cleaned up nice and tidy so he can get on with things. And yes, I think you are dead on that if the facility neglected his folks in some way his undies would be all twisted up.
This reminds me of another nut job, Professor Peter Singer of Princeton. He once stated that parents should have the right to 'abort' their child up to 1 year AFTER he/she had been born.If parents do not think their child would have a certain quality of life, they could pull the plug so to speak. If you advocate such a horrendous thing shouldn't you also be required to participate?
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Is there a moral distinction between handing Neil a gun and telling him he's legally allowed to kill his parents to end their suffering, and his expectation that their assisted living facility should have been complicit in their wish to die? In other words, is the withholding of care and life-sustaining necessities the same (at least in this situation) as actively working to bring about someone's death? I'd argue probably yes - though folks may find that one is messier than the other.
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