As you may or may not be aware, there is a push to legalize euthanasia in Canada. Those of us who are against that will want to check out this web site and sign in support of the letter there.
I like the website, because it gets at the core notion that euthanasia/assisted suicide do not constitute caring. There’s also a good FAQ section framing what’s at stake.
I signed (typed) on the dotted line and you can too! There’s a focus on medical professionals but laypeople are welcome.
There’s so much that’s wrong with this plan to broadcast the suicide of an American man on television. I’ll let you come up with your own objections – there are several to choose from. One surprising thing that caught my eye is the ad that ran with the story…
Isn’t that what the pros call cross-scripting?
Great piece in the Ottawa Citizen . It’s about assisted suicide and euthanasia and makes a tremendous argument against the practice. It concludes by saying:
There is a cultural assumption that severe disability is worse than death, and so to Daniel’s parents it was completely normal that their 23-year-old son wanted to die. Perhaps they were right. Maybe for Daniel, disability really would have been worse than death. But he should have been given a chance to discover otherwise.
This is our cultural assumption–that death is better, in particular in cases of disability. For that, we have no proof at all. (Tell me now, who is making a leap of faith with their arguments?)
Depression and loneliness are huge factors in wanting to die, in wanting someone else to die (in the case of abortion). Again, is killing the best we can come up with in these dire, sad circumstances?