Earlier this week, the Montana Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Death With Dignity case that is expected to uphold a District Court ruling from last December that found that patients have a right under the Montana State Constitution to request medication that aids in dying.
Washington’s law has been in effect for six months now, and the main issue in that time has been the question of whether Washingtonians in certain areas can find doctors who will allow them to exercise their rights. In Montana, which is even more vast and rural, this will almost certainly be an issue as well. I touched on that issue very briefly here and had some back and forth in the comments, but Jacob M. Appel covers it far more extensively here at Huffington Post:
Janet Murdock learned this awful lesson the hard way. The sixty-seven year old Missoula woman, who suffered from advanced ovarian cancer, initially believed that Judge McCarter’s ruling would guarantee her the death that she desired. Instead, she spent her final months trying to find a local doctor willing to help her die — eventually giving up food and water when no physician in the entire state proved willing to supply her with a lethal dose of medication. Her desperate efforts certainly were not aided by the Montana Medical Association, which issued a policy documented declaring aid in dying a violation of professional ethics, or that group’s president, Kirk Stoner, who has championed an absolutist, anti-assistance position on the issue. In response, before her death in June, Murdock released a statement that read: “I feel as though my doctors do not feel able to respect my decision to choose aid in dying…Access to physician aid in dying would restore my hope for a peaceful, dignified death in keeping with my values and beliefs.” The challenge for those on both sides of this issue is how to balance the “values and beliefs” of desperate patients like Murdock and Baxter with those of medical professionals who are personally opposed to easing their deaths. Our society will soon be forced to adjudicate these competing claims: Which right trumps? The patient’s right to die or the doctor’s right to follow her conscience?
The ongoing public debate over “conscience” clauses, which permit individual health care providers to opt out of medical practices to which they are morally opposed, has until now been confined primarily to issues of reproductive freedom. Pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for emergency contraceptives have become lighting rods in the debate over religious freedom and women’s health. A critical shortage of abortion providers has led some progressive commentators, including myself, to call for mandatory abortion training in obstetrics residency programs. However, even those policy-makers who support conscience exemptions in these areas should be able to recognize the fundamental difference between pharmacists who refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions and the physicians who would not help Janet Murdock to die. A handful of rogue druggists may certainly impede access to contraception — but all pharmacists do not oppose RU-486. A shortage of abortion providers, while deeply troublesome, is not the same as a complete, state-wide absence of abortion providers. If Montana doctors can act on their consciences, patients wishing to die will not merely have to endure additional burdens to vindicate their rights. Rather, they will have absolutely no means to effectuate them. Much as constitutional guarantees of press freedom do little good for prospective publishers if they do not have access to paper or ink, the right to aid in dying is strikingly useless if nobody is willing to help.
The legal profession long ago recognized that if our judicial system is to function meaningfully, all criminal defendants — even the most distasteful — should be entitled to representation. As a result, states provide attorneys for those who cannot find them on their own, and judges occasionally compel individual members of the bar to represent the interests of unpopular defendants. In contrast, doctors have rather stubbornly clung to historic notions of professional autonomy. These arguments might hold more sway if physicians operated in an open marketplace and if anyone with the appropriate knowledge and skills could practice medicine in the United States. In reality, medical licenses are a limited commodity, reflecting an artificial shortage created by a partnership between Congress and organizations representing physicians — with medical school seats and residency positions effectively allotted by the government, much like radio frequencies. Physicians benefit from this arrangement in that a smaller number of physicians inevitably leads to increased rates of reimbursements. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this arrangement. However, it belies any claim that doctors should have the same right to choose their customers as barbers or babysitters. Much as the government has been willing to impose duties on radio stations (eg. indecency codes, equal time rules) that would be impermissible if applied to newspapers, Montana might reasonably consider requiring physicians, in return for the privilege of a medical license, to prescribe medication to the dying without regard to the patient’s intent.
Mandating that physicians aid in dying should be a last resort. First, Montana should explore other, less-invasive means of ensuring that all citizens are guaranteed their constitutional right to die. One solution might be hiring a handful of publicly-salaried physicians, recruited from out-of-state, whose primary responsibility would be to offer palliative services, including lethal prescriptions, to the terminally ill. Another possibility would be easing licensure requirements for out-of-state physicians, particularly those from Washington or Oregon, who come to Montana on a short-term basis solely for the purpose of helping the terminally ill to die. Finally, the state might simply scrap its general requirement for physician-issued prescriptions in cases of terminal illness, instead providing both drugs and instructions directly to dying individuals or their families. In short, the state should think creatively about ways to ensure that the terminally ill do not suffer without taking the drastic step of forcing doctors to assist in dying.
The right to die is not an abstract principle. This right — or its absence — has a profound effect on the fundamental welfare of nearly every individual and family in the nation during the most vulnerable moments of their lives. If the Montana Supreme Court guarantees citizens the right to aid in dying, and I am both hopeful and confident that the court will do so, then it is also incumbent upon the justices to ensure a mechanism by which patients can exercise their rights. To do otherwise — to offer a theoretical right to die that cannot be meaningfully exercised — will be both a hollow gesture and a cruel taunt to the terminally ill.
No doctor should be EXPECTED to carry out the wishes of someone who chooses to die. Many of these doctors go into their field in order to help others and protect lives.
Screw the leftists and their culture of death. Oh, and for the dumbfuck that wrote this post, there is no such thing as “the right to die”.
Montana produces people like cynical, what do you expect?
And as for Empty Head asshole, you’re telling me I have no right to die, you incredible loon?
FUCK YOU. I hope you contract a disease appropriate to your loathsome personality and die screaming for someone to help you end the pain, and get a bunch of sneering conservatives telling you to rejoice that God has afflicted you to enable you to witness to your faith. Like Cynical.
I would expect nothing less from a sick and depraved liberal. Hate is a common trait in modern liberalism as you’ve just shown.
If someone wants to end their life, it shouldn’t require someone else to assist you. It’s called a moral compass tardboy.
You don’t have the right to REQUIRE others to assist you in ending your life. Especially when they go into that field in order to heal people and extend their lives.
Lee is always free with other people’s rights. But this exchange between the Duke of Norfolk and Sir Thomas More from A Man for All Seasons is instructive:
I wonder how Lee would feel if the whole argument was turned against him? If his moral code was the one offended such that he was being forced at the point of the figurative government gun to act in a way that was so repugnant to him as to cause him to regard the behavior as base and evil?
This exposes paucity of much of what passes for liberal “thinking.” It’s OK for them for force their morality on others because it’s immoral for anyone to believe other than how they believe. So much for freedom of conscience.
It’s also interesting that in the whole morality debate, conservatives tend to argue on behalf of preserving or protecting life while the left argues in favor of killing. Think about it.
The Piper
Perhaps Lee can post the exact location where “the right to die” is guaranteed in the Constitution…
He can’t of coure, because there is no such right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution nor the constitution of the state of Montana.
@ESO
OK Sweetie: I hope all your family contracts the same condition. They probably share your decerebrated dementia.
And Montana has no recognizable constitution, being a state of incredible beauty populated by a collection various loon groups and law enforcements officials who refuse to enforce Federal law.
Maybe we can build a fence around it and quarantine it in the name of common decency.
PIPER, you have the balls to come here and rant against liberals when your Most Holy Scotland just released the Lockerbie Bomber on “Compassionate grounds” ????
Fucking Moron
@7…MS…
Scotland didn’t do it – liberal politicians in Scotland and London (Gordon Brown) did it. Scots are as appalled as Americans.
Put a fence around Montana all you want since that rids the country of one Dem governor and two Dem senators.
The Piper
Try calling the police and tell them you are going to exercise your “right to die” and kill yourself.
Here in los angeles it’s called a 5150 (72 hour mental lockup) when someone wanting to die tries to kill themselves.
If you had the right, would the police try to stop you?
Words of wisdom that debunk Lee’s thinking:
Yet when it comes to drugs, Lee’s thinking is 180 degrees in the opposite direction. His libertarianism works only one way – his way. If he truly believed what he claims he believes regarding the freedom to use drugs, then he would be an advocate on behalf of those medical professionals who, as a matter of conscience, refuse to engage in acts that are repugnant to their consciences.
Think about it…
The Piper
@4
I wonder how Lee would feel if the whole argument was turned against him? If his moral code was the one offended such that he was being forced at the point of the figurative government gun to act in a way that was so repugnant to him as to cause him to regard the behavior as base and evil?
Instead of pretending that I’m a hypocrite, why don’t you try to come up with an actual scenario where this would be true?
Unlike you, I’m intellectually consistent in my views. I don’t out myself as a hypocrite every time I open my mouth.
This exposes paucity of much of what passes for liberal “thinking.” It’s OK for them for force their morality on others because it’s immoral for anyone to believe other than how they believe. So much for freedom of conscience.
It isn’t imposing morality on others to give people a choice about how they want to die. As for doctors, all of us want to avoid a situation where doctors are forced to do things they don’t want to do, but if this comes to a situation where a person’s free will comes up against a physician’s, I do think that the state can decide that the person’s free will trumps the doctor’s. But in that case, there’s no ideal, which is why the default position is to make it the last resort.
@10
Yet when it comes to drugs, Lee’s thinking is 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
Absolutely not. My position on death with dignity is exactly in line with my position on drugs. People should not have government make moral choices for them. And as Appel demonstrated with the case of guaranteeing defense attorneys, sometimes government has to take pro-active action in order to guarantee those rights.
His libertarianism works only one way – his way. If he truly believed what he claims he believes regarding the freedom to use drugs, then he would be an advocate on behalf of those medical professionals who, as a matter of conscience, refuse to engage in acts that are repugnant to their consciences.
And I do. As Appel says (and which I agree with), compelling doctors to provide access to the prescription should be a last resort. The far better option is for the state to hire doctors who can specifically address these requests.
@10
Think about it…
I have. Is it too much to ask for you to do so as well?
@ 11
Care to provide us where the “right to die” is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution?
..oh, and “free will” is exclusive to that person. At no time shall it be infringed by some dumbass that feels I should help them carry out their wish to end their lives.
You are not a libertarian Lee. You’re Not even close.
@5
Perhaps Lee can post the exact location where “the right to die” is guaranteed in the Constitution…
He’s referring to the Montana Constitution, and it’s right here.
@14
You are not a libertarian Lee. You’re Not even close, sunshine.
I’m not sure if I’m a libertarian, as that term means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but I firmly believe that government has no place in making people’s moral decisions for them. Call that what you will, but that’s what guides my political outlook.
@12…Lee…
“Compelling doctors to provide access to the prescription should be a last resort…”
That’s forcing someone to act against their conscience essentially at the point of a gun. It’s either freedom of conscience, or it’s not – conscience cannot be respected until it becomes inconvenient, at which time you compel.
Libertarianism places emphasis on the rights of individuals. Where’s your emphasis on the rights of individual health care professionals to absolutely refuse to engage in behavior they find morally repugnant?
The Piper
@ 15
That’s odd. I didn’t see anything that “guaranteed the right to die”, did you Lee? Perhaps you can quote the exact phrase that you believe supports this.
In fact, what I did see were phrases in the constitution that would protect the physician from having to engage in something they find morally objectionable.
Yet this is exactly what you are calling for by requiring a physician to take part in the ending of a life. You’re not at all consistent Lee.
Piper is a liar OR doesn’t read the comment sections of Times UK Scotland or Guardian where virtually ALL of the America-hating Scots are venting their spleen. Read it yourself. Easy enough.
But am I suprised?
@17
That’s forcing someone to act against their conscience essentially at the point of a gun.
It is, but it’s in order to ensure that the doctor doesn’t prevent an individual from being able to act on their conscience. It’s a true Catch-22 where one person’s rights have to be weighed against another’s. And I believe that the correct solution is to put the rights of an individual on a matter of life and death to be put above the rights of a physician in a matter of his practice. In fact, I find that to be an easy choice.
Libertarianism places emphasis on the rights of individuals.
Exactly, which is why refusing to acknowledge an individual’s right to choose how and when they die from a terminal illness is – in my mind – against libertarian thinking.
Where’s your emphasis on the rights of individual health care professionals to absolutely refuse to engage in behavior they find morally repugnant?
It exists, but it just can’t trump an individual’s right to choose death with dignity. I’m fairly confident that no doctor will ever have to be compelled to write the prescription if they have a moral objection, but Appel discusses it because it’s a theoretical possibility. That’s what intelligent people do when they approach difficult issues like this. They examine hypotheticals and weigh the various rights of people.
If you want to be taken seriously as a thinker, you should work on doing things like that.
@18
That’s odd. I didn’t see anything that “guaranteed the right to die”, did you Lee?
The judge in Montana did. And the Montana Supreme Court will almost certainly concur.
Yet this is exactly what you are calling for by requiring a physician to take part in the ending of a life. You’re not at all consistent Lee.
Again, incorrect. I’m not calling for a physician to take part in the ending of a life. I’m pointing out that if individuals are unable to exercise their rights, the state of Montana must take action to ensure that they can. Compelling doctors to write prescriptions should be the last resort in such an endeavor. And I highly doubt we’ll ever have to go there.
What Lee is suggesting in this post is that one persons “free will” trumps another persons “free will”.
I’m fairly certain the founding father’s would not agree with his viewpoint, nor would any Constitutional scholar.
<blockquoteI’m not calling for a physician to take part in the ending of a life.
is not consistent with…
Last resort or not, you are compelling a physician to assist in ending a life.
Those are inconsistent statements.
PIPER LIAR: Scots divided. Not opposed to release
http://www.reuters.com/article.....O220090828
“He had the courage to make the right decision for the right reasons, which attracts very substantial support in this poll and other surveys.”
Hypocrite!
Prove Lee a liar and he’ll scrub your posts. What a sad individual.
A liberal for certain.
Cognitive Dissonance on display:
@1 “there is no such thing as “the right to die”.”
You’re confused. There’s no right to kill, although that’s never stopped rightwing jingoists and chest-beaters from advocating the wholesale extermination of entire societies. And there’s no right to force others to continue living lives of unbearable pain and suffering. As an individual, I most certainly do have a right to decide when, and under what circumstances, I do not wish to be resuscitated or have my life prolonged.
Empty Suit,
“Prove Lee a liar and he’ll scrub your posts. What a sad individual.”
Lee didn’t “scrub” your posts, dumbfuck. Rather your drivel was caught in the spam filter.
@
@20…Lee…
Please note that I haven’t made any comments one way or the other on what’s happening in Montana or whether there is a so-called “right to die” by demanding someone help you.
I do believe that assisted suicide is a morally repugnant act. Disgusting. And I’ve had in my own family instances where some would say it would have been appropriate. But my mother was made of sterner stuff, and she fought until the very end. Her grandchildren noticed this, and they often enough comment on how they respected as well as loved her grit and determination.
But as to the legal issue? I believe it is morally and ethically repugnant to claim you have the right to compel another to do something for you, in this case to give you snuff drugs, which is morally repugnant to them.
At the root of your argument is “all about me” thinking: I want something, you must give it to me – my wants are the most important thing.
Assume for the moment the Montana court upholds your argument. Does that mean that on any right I have a corresponding right to force someone to make my exercise of it convenient? If I have the right to read porn, can I demand of the local newstand that my favorites be readily available on the shelf?
No one should ever be obligated at the point of the government gun to be any other person’s unwilling slave. Effectively, that’s what you want – what better example of an “all about me” mentality.
Your argument has more holes than Goldy’s moth-eaten sweater.
The Piper
@3 “You don’t have the right to REQUIRE others to assist you in ending your life. Especially when they go into that field in order to heal people and extend their lives.”
Well, I must say that I agree with this. A similar problem comes up in connection with judicial executions. Prison wardens usually can’t get a doctor to administer, supervise, or participate in executions because the medical profession considers this a violation of professional ethics. Assisted suicide laws also put doctors between a rock and a hard place. As a practical matter, you can’t mandate something the ethical rules of a profession forbid. You’re not going to get compliance. Any professional worth a damn forced to choose between the law or the ethics of his profession will stick with the ethics.
Montana Sheepfucker spews blah blah blah..
BTW Montana Sheepfucker is the perfect name for an HA Libtardo!
@
One of the more intelligent things I have posted lately……even by MY standards!
Empty Suit @ 23,
“I’m not calling for a physician to take part in the ending of a life. … Compelling doctors to write prescriptions should be the last resort in such an endeavor.”
Only because you dishonestly edited the statement, you lying asswipe.
Lee’s statement without the selective editing is:
That is a completely consistent statement.
Examples forthcoming? Or is your hatred of this country so deep it isn’t important to back up your fucking lunacy with proof.
Who’s forcing them to live? This is the internet age and Ms. Murdock could take her life in any number of ways. She lacks the courage pure and simple. She feels she NEEDS someone else to end her pathetic life. She feels her “free will” should trump someone elses.
Yet, as an idividual, you don’t have the right to compell someone else to do this.
Logic isn’t your friend, Roger.
@Puddy
My, aren’t you just the cleverest, wittiest, most stimulating and literate thinkers this world has ever seen????
And don’t we just admire every brilliant comment you make here, with it’s wonderful syntax and carefully crafted prose?
And shouldn’t we use your scintillating observations and incisive social criticism as educational tools? Putting you in textbooks for our children to read?
AND such a PERFECT name for you
PUDDYBUD
How impressive!
@28 Well, whaddya know — the spam filter caught some spam.
@22
What Lee is suggesting in this post is that one persons “free will” trumps another persons “free will”.
I’m fairly certain the founding father’s would not agree with his viewpoint, nor would any Constitutional scholar.
It’s not a viewpoint, dummy. It’s a real-life situation.
Last resort or not, you are compelling a physician to assist in ending a life.
But it would be in a situation where not compelling the physician results in a situation where a moral choice is being imposed on them. As I said, it’s a Catch-22, so you have to weigh the competing rights.
No dumbfuck. I left out the middle sentence. His statements were directly inconsistent. Even a poor example of an educator like yourself should be able to see that.
@23
Those are inconsistent statements.
No they’re not. What I’m saying is that you can only compel a physician to do something that is against their free will if you’re in a situation where if you don’t an individual’s free will would be violated.
@30 “But as to the legal issue? I believe it is morally and ethically repugnant to claim you have the right to compel another to do something for you, in this case to give you snuff drugs, which is morally repugnant to them.”
Uh, Piper, when you say “as to the legal issue” you should then proceed to comment on the legal issue instead of the moral issue. I hope you wrote your briefs better than this back when you were a practicing lawyer.
Although my thinking on the moral issue is about the same as yours, the legal issue and the moral issue are two different things; and, as an ex-lawyer, you ought to know how little law has to do with morality, and that moral arguments get you nowhere in the practice of law.
No. As established, we all have “free will”. She could end her life in any number of ways. She just lacks the courage to do so. Compelling any other person to end your pathetic life is simply chicken shit when a bottle of pills and a pint of vodka will accomplish this task without bringing someone elses morals into play.
@28
Lee didn’t “scrub” your posts, dumbfuck. Rather your drivel was caught in the spam filter.
LOL! Someone has a hankerin’ for making an ass of himself today.
Examples forthcoming? Or is your hatred of this country so deep it isn’t important to back up your fucking lunacy with proof.
what brilliant, contrived diversionary inflamations!
You should be proud, like your cousin Puddy, of your wittiness and incisiveness.
I’d accuse you of being Puddy’s alter-ego here, but he’s not that smart.
Though the logic and accuracy is about equally dismal.
X’ad if you EVER said something worthwhile we’d debate. Still waiting for you to leave the starting line.
BTW Montana Sheepfucker is the perfect name for an HA Libtardo!
Fool! Lee already answered Puddy is Puddy and no one else. That’s why byebyegop was sent packing for a while. He doppelgangered Puddy when told to stop. Puddy don’t doppelganger any other of us who think right.
Proves you are a useless one X’ad. Butt, Puddy does think Montana Sheepfucker is one of your alter egos. Maybe you are related to spongebob wondermoron and clusterfucked cinderblock, two of the known bottom dwellers on HA Libtardos.
Lee~ I think you’re confused about the meaning of “free will”. Ms. Murdock has the “free will” to end her life. That free will does not transfer to the physician’s free will not to assist her.
Imposing your “free will” on another persons is simply anti-American, and that is what Ms. Murdock is attempting to do.
@42
No. As established, we all have “free will”.
Correct.
She could end her life in any number of ways.
But if you make that decision for her – which way to end her terminal illness – you’re violating her free will in a far greater way than it is to compel a physician to write a prescription that doesn’t affect him directly. That’s a pretty big difference.
She just lacks the courage to do so.
That’s absolutely incorrect and it shows that you’re approaching this topic with some significant biases about who makes these death with dignity choices and why.
Compelling any other person to end your pathetic life is simply chicken shit when a bottle of pills and a pint of vodka will accomplish this task without bringing someone elses morals into play.
If you want to be taken seriously here, try harder. Put aside your bullshit biases about this topic and deal with it like an adult.
…and this post is making you do that quite adequately, Lee.
@46
Lee~ I think you’re confused about the meaning of “free will”. Ms. Murdock has the “free will” to end her life. That free will does not transfer to the physician’s free will not to assist her.
On this point, we could probably find some common ground. I’d be all for allowing this prescription to be obtained without a doctor, but most people wouldn’t. But in the meantime, if we require doctors to certify the decision, we could theoretically end up in a situation where a doctor is compelled to write the prescription.
@48
Keep telling yourself that, champ!
False. You’re compelling the physician to take a life that he/she finds morally wrong. You’re trumping their free will for someone that has “free will”, and chooses not to use it.
It is absolutely true. She has the free will to extinguish her life and has chosen not to. Her choice is to place someone else in the position of ending her life. She’s not only a coward, but a fairly sick inidividual for putting some other human being in such a moral dilemna. My guess is she’s a liberal.
Compelling any other person to end your pathetic life is simply chicken shit when a bottle of pills and a pint of vodka will accomplish this task without bringing someone elses morals into play.
If you want to be taken seriously here, try harder. Put aside your bullshit biases about this topic and deal with it like an adult.
PUDDY
OF COURSE I am Montana Sheepfucker! It took you THIS LONG to figure that out????????
Everybody else certainly saw the obvious. You really ARE dim.
I am sure that trying to explain satire and sarcasm to you is futile, but take it from me that only a dodo would not have seen that at once. Except, of course for Cynical, who thought I was Steve, and Cyn was the object of the sarcasm. Geeeze. Louise!
I have a distinctive writing style that was identical in both names.
Anybody else not understand that?
Empty Suit,
“I left out the middle sentence. His statements were directly inconsistent. Even a poor example of an educator like yourself should be able to see that.”
What you left out was a conditional statement, you fucking retard.
Apparently, you are unaware of the most rudimentary conventions of debate.
If I say, “If Cheney is convicted of war crimes, I want him to be imprisoned”, that is not advocating imprisonment for Cheney. Upon a conviction, it would be.
Were you talking into a mirror when you posted that? If not, you should have been.
Bottom line:
All individuals have “free will”. Whether or not you choose to exercise that right is up to you and you alone. Compelling others to do something against their free will is wrong and inherently Unamerican.
Ms. Murcock has eschewed her free will and instead is infringing upon the free will of another person by requiring that person to do something they find morally reprehensible.
That is just the unbiased truth.
@40 It’s a difficult situation, Lee — what people capable of thought refer to as a moral dilemma — one for which there is no easy or black-and-white answer, which puts it beyond the ken and reasoning capability of our trolls.
It would be nice of we had a better class of trolls on this board, so we could have more interesting discussions … but I digress. There’s a distinction between requiring a pharmacist to fill a prescription written by a doctor as a condition of licensure, and requiring a doctor to write a prescription in the first place. The pharmacist is merely being asked to perform a ministerial act; the doctor’s role involves professional discretion. In the latter case, the question becomes whether writing a prescription for a lethal medication is in the best interest of the patient. Clearly it is not, if the patient is simply depressed and doesn’t want to go on living. But in the case of a terminal patient in agonizing pain with no prospect of recovery or relief, it is difficult to argue that refusing the patient’s request for a lethal prescription constitutes helping the patient.
The role of the assisted suicide law (or Montana constitution, or whatever) in this is, a doctor cannot do something illegal, but if the law legalizes writing that prescription, then the doctor is free to exercise his professional judgment.
And that’s what these issues always boil down to. Whether a person should be assisted in his desire to end his life depends on the facts of the case and requires application of informed and sound judgment to those facts. God gave us brains in order to use them. That’s why we don’t use computers as judges, doctors, or managers. Electronic machines, however cleverly designed, can’t think. The assisted suicide law merely permits the use of thinking in the situations for which it is intended, but the law itself can’t do the actual thinking. Neither can stupid, ignorant, or dogmatic people.
@30
Please note that I haven’t made any comments one way or the other on what’s happening in Montana or whether there is a so-called “right to die” by demanding someone help you.
You haven’t made an intelligent point of any shape or form in months.
I do believe that assisted suicide is a morally repugnant act. Disgusting.
Then don’t take part it in. Considering that you’re not a doctor, and that there’s a 99.9% chance that you’ll die in spectacular Darwin Award fashion, that should be fairly easy.
And I’ve had in my own family instances where some would say it would have been appropriate. But my mother was made of sterner stuff, and she fought until the very end.
Good for her. Some people see strength as suffering. Others see strength as not fearing death. Neither side is inherently right.
Her grandchildren noticed this, and they often enough comment on how they respected as well as loved her grit and determination.
That’s a lovely story.
But as to the legal issue? I believe it is morally and ethically repugnant to claim you have the right to compel another to do something for you, in this case to give you snuff drugs, which is morally repugnant to them.
And as I have said repeatedly now, ensuring a person’s right-to-die this way is a last resort, something that is only done if there’s no other way to guarantee that right for a citizen.
At the root of your argument is “all about me” thinking: I want something, you must give it to me – my wants are the most important thing.
Gee, it’s kind of crazy how liberals like me approach basic rights, isn’t it? Wow, you’re an idiot.
Assume for the moment the Montana court upholds your argument. Does that mean that on any right I have a corresponding right to force someone to make my exercise of it convenient?
No, you have a right to make it possible, but not convenient. If you’re having trouble understanding what I’m arguing, then go away and come back when you’re smarter.
If I have the right to read porn, can I demand of the local newstand that my favorites be readily available on the shelf?
No, see comment above, especially the part about getting smarter.
No one should ever be obligated at the point of the government gun to be any other person’s unwilling slave.
No shit, dummy.
Effectively, that’s what you want – what better example of an “all about me” mentality.
Nope, try again.
Your argument has more holes than Goldy’s moth-eaten sweater.
Then how come you can’t find one?
Moron.
Empty Suit @ 53,
“Were you talking into a mirror when you posted that? If not, you should have been.”
Were you taking dictation from a 12-year old when you wrote that, Squirt?
Or did your brain just calcify at that age?
Then how come you’re not on this issue, Rog?
Right. Like those thinking that infringing on someone elses free will is morally correct.
@54
All individuals have “free will”. Whether or not you choose to exercise that right is up to you and you alone.
And if our systems and institutions make it impossible to exercise that right, the government must take action to fix that situation.
Compelling others to do something against their free will is wrong and inherently Unamerican.
Exactly, which is why it would be un-American to allow an entire state’s medical association from preventing individuals from exercising their free will.
Ms. Murcock has eschewed her free will and instead is infringing upon the free will of another person by requiring that person to do something they find morally reprehensible.
No, she’s not. She’s simply asserting that she has a particular right. This right should be attainable through a willing doctor who has no moral opposition to this choice. If none exists in her area, the state can hire one. And only if all else fails could they consider compelling doctors.
Your argument is no different than saying that just because I demand a right to a fair trial that I’m compelling attorneys to do things against their free will.
@56
The pharmacist is merely being asked to perform a ministerial act; the doctor’s role involves professional discretion. In the latter case, the question becomes whether writing a prescription for a lethal medication is in the best interest of the patient. Clearly it is not, if the patient is simply depressed and doesn’t want to go on living. But in the case of a terminal patient in agonizing pain with no prospect of recovery or relief, it is difficult to argue that refusing the patient’s request for a lethal prescription constitutes helping the patient.
This is a very good point, thank you.
@58
Cerebral calcititis???? A new syndrome??? EOS complex???
BRILLIANT. The mind boggles. (I’d think you’d decline to have it named after you in your honor, though.)
Presumed etiology?
inquiring decalcified minds want to know.
No, people use their free will to end their lives every single day in America. They are not hampered in any way by the “systems and institutions” that you mention.
False. A persons free will is not hampered by anyone else. They either exercise it or choose not to.
Again, there is no “right to die” under the Constitution.
I have no opposition to this. It is when a physician, as you believe, should be compelled to carry out her wishes and imposing on his/her free will.
No, compelling someone to do something is infringing on their free will. If Ms. murdock lacks the courage to exercise her free will, then she has made the decision to live. Compelling someone else to do the deed she doesn’t want to perform herself is not only cowardly, but morally reprehensible.
Apples and oranges argument. The right to a fair trial is guaranteed in the constitution. The right to die is not.
@57…Lee…
Typical – void of intellectual ammunition, you resort to ad hominum attacks and personal insults.
You keep falling back on the ultimate fallacy in your argument, that of convenience. I have the right to disagree morally with you until it becomes ultimately inconvenient for you. Then you have the right to absolutely void my conscience for the sake of yours.
I submit, for the sake of argument, that you have the right to yours absolutely – snuff drugs and other pharmaceuticals included. But I also have the absolute right to mine, which precludes same.
In the event of an irreconcilable difference between the two, you haven’t a superior right to enforce your beliefs on me. If the exercise or your so-called “right” to opt out of life isn’t exercisable without someone else’s help, then I guess you’re the one out of luck, not me. And I shouldn’t be made to help you do that which I find repugnant just because you can’t.
I mean there are always the old-fashioned ways of doing it – remedies of self-help. So, you can’t say you’re out of options.
The Piper
In Piper’s case it’s not ad hominem. At least not literally.
anybody that dresses up in a skirt and struts about is more like a drag queen.
Or one of those ballsy Scots that releases terrorists on “compassionate” grounds.
@59 “Then how come you’re not on this issue, Rog?”
You might embarrass yourself less if you actually read my posts before commenting on them.
@59 (continued) I hate to tell you this, dumbass, but basically you’re calling me brainless for essentially agreeing with your position on physician free will … so what does that make you?
67
See “calcification” above. Now YOU explain Puddy for ME
@63
No, people use their free will to end their lives every single day in America.
Correct, but it’s still against the law everywhere but Washington and Oregon to obtain a medication that is specifically to allow a clean, quick, and dignified death.
They are not hampered in any way by the “systems and institutions” that you mention.
Incorrect. The government makes it illegal to obtain this prescription.
False. A persons free will is not hampered by anyone else. They either exercise it or choose not to.
And in this case, the Montana judge ruled – correctly – that a person’s free will is hampered and their basic rights violated by not allowing people to obtain this prescription.
Again, there is no “right to die” under the Constitution.
There is under the Montana Constitution and there should be under any constitution that seeks to adequately protect individual liberty.
I have no opposition to this. It is when a physician, as you believe, should be compelled to carry out her wishes and imposing on his/her free will.
And this can only happen when all other avenues for allowing an individual to exercise this basic right have been exhausted. Nothing I’ve said, nor does anything that Appel has argued, contradicts that.
No, compelling someone to do something is infringing on their free will.
Exactly. And if you have a system where no doctors are willing to write these prescriptions, you are compelling people to either continue a terminal illness against their will, or to choose an inferior form of suicide against their will. Either way, you’re infringing on their basic rights, as seen by the Montana state constitution.
If Ms. murdock lacks the courage to exercise her free will, then she has made the decision to live.
This is more than simply a decision about living or dying. It’s about the method of ending one’s life. Anyone can end their life simply by shooting themselves in the head, but forcing them into that option is most certainly a violation of their free will. Again, another avenue to averting a situation where a physician could be compelled to write a prescription would be to allow the medication to be obtained without a prescription, something that’s just not feasible at this point.
Apples and oranges argument. The right to a fair trial is guaranteed in the constitution. The right to die is not.
The right to die is guaranteed in the Montana Constitution, so yes, we’re arguing apples to apples.
@64
Typical – void of intellectual ammunition, you resort to ad hominum attacks and personal insults.
If you want me to take your arguments seriously, make serious arguments. Don’t act like a clown and then complain that people are laughing at you. That’s what people do to clowns. They laugh at them.
You keep falling back on the ultimate fallacy in your argument, that of convenience.
No I’m not. You’re pretending that I’m arguing about convenience (which I’m very clearly not, and explained that quite well in my last comment). I would never compel a doctor to write this prescription simply to make it convenient for someone. I would only compel it if the individual would be prevented completely from having the right otherwise.
I submit, for the sake of argument, that you have the right to yours absolutely – snuff drugs and other pharmaceuticals included. But I also have the absolute right to mine, which precludes same.
Absolutely. But it’s really hard to argue that the weight of the moral choice being made by the patient is as heavy as the weight of the moral choice being made by the doctor. The doctor is not affected by their act of writing the prescription in any way other than in their own head. It doesn’t affect them in any truly tangible way.
Of course, I do believe that piece of mind is essential to free will, so I still strongly fight to protect it. But it doesn’t outweigh the patient’s free will in this hypothetical.
In the event of an irreconcilable difference between the two, you haven’t a superior right to enforce your beliefs on me.
Do you really not understand how ridiculous this comment is? Do you not understand the meaning of “irreconcilable”? In this hypothetical, one person is going to enforce their beliefs on the other. That’s going to happen either way. The question is – which person’s assertion of free will carries more weight, and I have extraordinary difficulty seeing how anyone could choose the doctor in that case. The only way is that if you have such an extreme bias towards the people who make the decision to die with dignity that you just decide that their free will has no value at all.
If the exercise or your so-called “right” to opt out of life isn’t exercisable without someone else’s help, then I guess you’re the one out of luck, not me.
But as I already explained to the other idiot I’m arguing with here, the “right” isn’t exercisable without someone else’s help. The medication is only available by prescription. People – by law – can’t obtain it on their own.
I mean there are always the old-fashioned ways of doing it – remedies of self-help. So, you can’t say you’re out of options.
No there aren’t. That’s just not true.
Laws don’t hamper free will. As you already conceded. Suicide kills tens of thousands each year. Their free will was not impeded.
By this, you’re implying this is the only way to exercise your free will to die. There are literally thousands of ways to end your life, you must simply choose your course. To impose on someone else to make your decision for you is cowardly and lacking any moral integrity.
False. When you force someones free will, you’re infringing on their most basic rights. Any person that could consider themselves a “libertarian” should be able to work out the logic on this.
No, nothing in the excerpts you provided said anything about a “right to die”.
Again, there exists no “right to die”. You’re simply inventing one in order to make your point of view acceptable. It isn’t because there isn’t one.
False. She has exercised her free will to not end her life. She has no right to infringe on someone elses in order to fulfill her “free will”. It is exclusive to each individual.
Again, there are literally thousands of way to take your life. Exercising your free will to do so is your right. Imposing on someone elses free will to carry out your wishes, however, is amoral and void of any common decency.
False. You’ve provided no such proof in Montana’s constitution. None of the items you linked to spoke of a “right to die”.
When you dissect Lee’s argument, he simply scrubs your posts. Reminds me why coming to HA is not really worth the time.
What a coward.
Lee @ 70 says:
It’s still compulsion, and it’s still wrong. But it’s just as wrong for the state to PREVENT a doctor from helping terminally ill patients end their lives, if the patients and the doctor agree to it.
This is one area in which the marketplace will function if allowed to. If not only compulsion, but SANCTIONS, are removed, enough doctors will find a way to help patients who so desire to end their lives.
@70…Lee…
“No I’m not. You’re pretending that I’m arguing about convenience (which I’m very clearly not, and explained that quite well in my last comment). I would never compel a doctor to write this prescription simply to make it convenient for someone. I would only compel it if the individual would be prevented completely from having the right otherwise.”
If that isn’t an argument in favor of convenience, than I guess you can’t make one.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that there is only one doctor in Montana and that your POV is law. Further assume the doctor refuses to prescribe or otherwise assist in your snuff project because he opposes it as a matter of conscience. How would you compel him? What if he continues to refuse? Would you jail him? Deprive him of his medical license? What if he continues to refuse? At what point would you resort to the ultimate compelling force of imprisoning him until such time as he recants? When would you find his refusal heinous enough to execute him?
You have impaled yourself on the horns of Sir Thomas More’s dilemma cited in my post @4, above. For the sake of your beliefs, you are perfectly prepared to deprive another of his. You put yourself above him as morally surperior, essentially for the same convenience as Norfolk’s “fellowship.” And you cannot envision the legitimacy of More’s hell since you hold the belief’s of another to be less than yours, hence invalid and subject to being compelled out of existence as a “last resort.”
How about this: respect the doctor’s right to his beliefs and the dignity of his person and leave him alone – just like you insist that of you and your beliefs all the time?
It’s cheap and easy for you to toss the rights of another overboard. What if the shoe was on the other foot – what if, at some point, some right of yours stood in conflict with the right of another and you were compelled to accede to that other person’s notion of the higher good? Would you like being forced into committing an act of moral turpitude bordering on the morally criminal or reprehensible such that your conscience forever troubled you?
Think on that before you engage in flights of smug superiority and faux-righteousness.
The Piper
That describes Lee to a tee, piper. You can always tell when he’s losing an argument on merit because comments mysteriously disappear. This has happened before on this site, but is usually either Lee or Goldy that are the culprits. Even Darryl, the lazy and unprepared professor doesn’t resort to this tact, even though most of his arguments are easily dissectable.
It appears you don’t have any examples.
And worse yet, you didn’t even try.
What?
But gbs said he had the proof I was your sockpuppet.
95. GBS spews:
Marvn Stamn is really just Puddybud everybody.
No need to think otherwise any more. Must admit I had my suspcisons all along, but needed the proof.
Now I have it.
In typical gbs fashion, he never provided the proof. Hell, has he even been on this blog since he figured out I was Puddy?
Once again proving Puddy correct that the blog masters look the other way when it’s left-wingnuts and their sockpuppetry.
Why not?
Is there some moral reasoning that someone depressed doesn’t have the same “right to die” as anyone else?
Who decides who has the “right” to die? If someone makes that decision, is it still a right and not a privilege granted by the government?
Kinda like when some suicidal guy shoots innocent people and then waits for the cops to shoot him.
Do you mean that people aren’t allowed to blow their brains out, jump off bridges, overdose, step in front of trains to kill themselves anymore in seattle?
Just wait until lee runs off to his other blog and writes posts about how he got the better of you.
He wrote 3 posts about me, he even bragged how high it is in a google search for marvin stamn. Don’t tell lee that it’s not really my name, he enjoys thinking he’s punked me or something.
You’re fucking clueless, Lee. That statement just proves you don’t know what “free will” means. But then, you already knew that.
@80…MS…
I guess Lee hasn’t been up to the second-floor gun department at Cabela’s lately. More popularly priced hand guns there than you can shake a stick at. And loads of ammo. Of course, because of liberally-driven federal and state laws, there are forms to fill out, background checks and waiting periods, which interfere with an individual’s absolute right to off himself.
Maybe Lee’s analysis would void them in favor of the right of someone to get a gun now to put a bullet in his brain now – right there at the gun counter, for example? It would be his right to compel Cabela’s to respect his right to blow his brains out.
What do you think?
The Piper
@ 84 Marvin.
Thanks for the link. I knew my insticts were correct. Funny how those that are fundamentally against the institutions of government find themselves safely ensconced in high paid positions within those same institutions.
Ward Churchill, Darryl Holman, Noam Chomsky…birds of a feather I guess. The best thing about the institutions of lower learning is that a professor like Holman, Churchill, Chomsky, etc. is that they don’t need to expand their thought processes. They’re beliefs go unchallenged and better still, only reinforced by mush brained students that have already been mind fucked prior to entering the university.
The bubble of ignorance has a large student population.
Not a chance that lee would be in favor of loosening gun laws so people could blow their own brains out.
It goes against his basic principles of someone doing for themselves instead of the government having a hand in it.
But he would be in favor of loosening laws to force others to be an accomplice in the death of a human being.
Gee…I missed all the fun…stamn and the crackpiper and the eso all competing for spewing the largest amount of verbal vomit.
Original thoughts, assholes? Got any? Logic? Common sense? Didn’t think so…
To think that the rabbit used to get paid (and paid well) for making tahr-tahr out of bush leaguers like you all…and I get to watch for FREE!!!!!
Yayyyy!!!
Keep it up imbecilic losers…it’s mighty damn entertaining.
Wow.
Another top-notch comment from the man of original thought.
Of course, you once again forgot to put any original thought into your last two comments but we all expect you to come up with something original within the next couple weeks. Don’t let us down.
Say, why don’t you write something about how you plan to end your life. Can you do it yourself or in your typical fashion, expect the government to do for you?
Fuck you marvin…I’ll easily outlast a piece of shit like you.
OH! the marvin thinks anything he has to say is germaine to anything, or even interesting…
…BIG CLUE marvie-poo….
You’re a crushing BORE.
It’s always interesting to glimpse into the hate-filled world of today’s modern[?] liberal.
I know I can always count on this site to find at least one to put under a microscope and they never disappoint.
@88…R…
Hey – none of us got tossed under the Obama Express yesterday. It was your 9/11 truther buddy, Van Jones who’s going to the unemployment office on Tuesday. Get there early so you can show him how to fill out the forms.
And keep up your witty analysis…You make the rest of the HA Happy Hooligans look mediocre by comparison, with you dragging them under by the word.
The Piper
You have way too much hate in you to live a long life.
The kind of bitterness that is fermenting inside you leads to health problems, to say nothing of your emotional health struggles.
If I’m such a bore, why do you keep replying to me and mentioning me in your comments.
See little rujax, your own actions prove you to be a liar.
@95…
Doesn’t stop YOU from wasting our time asswipe.
Besides…you’re such an easy fucking target even I can take you down.
Marvin, that’s why @87,88,90,91,96 was named the clusterfucked cinderblock.
There isn’t anything dumber than a cinderblock with it’s large interstitial holes full of hot air and being clusterfucked well Pelletizer knows what that means.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
OK,I’ll agree you are all in the box. You didn’t really read that article carefully.
She was in pain.
You legalize heroin, opium, and marijuna for pain, you let people die with dignity and no damn pain.
My mother died of pancreatic cancer. Extreme pain. She refused all painkillers because she did not to become “addicted.”
Three days before her death, I called her doctor who did not give her medications because
medical ethics forbade it. This was at 2 in the morning when it my turn to sit with her as sweat washed her whole body and she gritted her teeth so hard I could hear pieces breaking off.
I told the doctor that he could shove medical ethics up his ass. That my mother was not going to die in pain and that if I had to I was going to drive 200 miles to the nearest large city and buy street heroin.
The morphine drip with the hand control was in in less than a half an hour. I insisted that there be a patient control so she could try it and control it herself. She did not die in pain.
I have to admit that I had accidentally on purpose let a nurse see me transferring my gun from one pocket of my coat to the other just before I went out to the front desk and told them to call the doctor.
My mother did not die in pain.
So you were indirectly threatening with bodily harm the medical staff tending to your mother?
It takes a special type of coward to do that, dude.
You gotta provide the link to back up that bullshit.
If you can’t, don’t worry, no one expects you to be able to back it up.
I’m obviously interesting enough to you that I can get you to reply like a trained monkey.
Thanks for punking yourself, saves me 15 seconds.
Why don’t you prove I’m boring and ignore me? Your continued replies prove otherwise squirt.
I feel sorry for rujax. He must have a tough life.
Oh well.
Sorry to hear you had to watch your mom suffer.
That said…
Since you had a gun with you, why didn’t YOU end her life of pain? If not by gun, why not smother her with a pillow?
Why did you want someone to do what you wouldn’t do.
And yes, I understand how hard that would be for a good son. But it does show how soft Americans have become. Look how many people freaked out about palin giving an interview in front of turkeys being slaughtered yet the same people eat turkey at thanksgiving.
Oh…don’t worry about ‘ol rujax, marvie-poo…if I were you I’d worry about why I was such an idiot…
…oh wait…you’re such an idiot, you don’t KNOW you’re an idiot…
hahahahaha…I crack me up.
Oh…don’t worry about ‘ol rujax, marvie-poo…if I were you I’d worry about why I was such an idiot…
…oh wait…you’re such an idiot, you don’t KNOW you’re an idiot…
hahahahaha…I crack me up.
the marvin is SUCH A CLOD he probably has no idea how sstupid and insensitive that comment is. jesus christ you’re an ass.
You’re probably an idiot because your parents were idiots.
You’re probably an idiot because your parents were idiots.
You’re so stupid you had to comment twice to confirm it.
It’s good to see you are still replying to me and talking about me. Kinda sucks that you have no willpower to ignore someone you say is boring.
Shorter marvin:
“I know you are but what am I?”
clusterfucked cinderblock “aired”
Choose one of the following
1 Moron []
2 Idiot []
3 Stupid []
4 Worthless []
5 Insipid []
6 All of the above []
Puddy suggests choose #6.
[x] 6- all of the above
109. Puddybud is shocked SHOCKED spews:
6 All of the above [X]
@78 Suicide is against the law. Law has nothing to do with morality, and morality has nothing to do with law.
Getting between Lee and the Trolls is a bit like preaching non violence in Gaza … but …
Just to clarify a few facts or at least offer rational opinions:
1. there is nothing esp. “dignified” about the cocktail written into WA state law.
The cocktail, sort of a modern “hemlock,” causes death by suffocation after inducing sleep. Since the patient is now asleep we assume but can not know that they do not suffer.
Personally, I can think of several dozen more dignified ways to die.
There is, after all, a well established tradition of shooting oneself in the head. This does not require any one else’s help and is instantaneous if done properly.
In other countries, a sword thrust through the aorta is a dignfied choice. Why not legalize Seppuku? Or is bloodundignified to Lee?
High dose morphine has often been the drug of choice for dignified suicide. This is dignified and pleasant.
2. Contrary to Lee’s dismissive tone, it does seem to me that Piper’s arguement about “convenience” has some merit.
Why should the decision to commit suicide compell others to halp you do so any more than the decision to have breast augmentation, liposuction, penile inmplants, or take steroids to enhance muscle mass ought to entitle anyone ot force a doctor to make those decisions?
3. Contrary to the prophaganda behind I 1000, it has long been perfectly legal for a doctor to assist in a patient’s death PROVIDED he or she is doing this to relieve and avoid pain and suffering. In fact this one reaosnj that the cocktail would not be approved as way of ending life in a hospital.
The judgement as to when a doctor feels this is appropriate is a very difficult one and is, if anything, made mnore difficult by the laws like I-1000 that legislate clinicla decisions.
4. Lee continually dimisses or ignores medical ethics. While I share Lee’s libertarian ideals of the right to end one’s own life, I find the idea abhorrent and intrusive that the government would legislate assistance with suicide as an ethical choice that physicians must accept.
If we must have someone in society selling a lethal drink, why should mustb that person be a doctor? Or does Lee think only doctgors should be able to sell guns too?
Actually, the only clinicl parts of the law in WASTATE,is the diagnosis of “death within six months” and “no depressed.” Leaving aside the worriosme conceptof being told you are to die in six months and NOT being depreessed, there is nothing in either of these diagnoses that means the doc needs to also presecribe “hemlock.”
If Lee and others worry that some poor soul will not be able find the cocktail, then all they need to do is find one of the few docs willing to write such scripts and have that doc communicated with the physician diagnosing terminal illeness w/o depression.
Finally, I suggest there is more than just a bit of irony in the radical Beckian right preaching about “death panels” while Lee innocently suggests that the government employ physicians for the specific purpose opf administing a suicide concktail.
@114 “Personally, I can think of several dozen more dignified ways to die.”
The Hemingway method isn’t especially dignified and is quite messy but is damned quick … and doesn’t require the state’s permission or a prescription from a doctor.
Wow, trying to weave through this thread made clear how different the concept of liberty means on the right versus the left. Twenty years ago, in a very Mormon community in southern Idaho, my family gathered to decide whether to pull the plug on my mother. Idaho law forbade it. My mother had said before the operation that had brought her to her state, that she did not want to be in that state. That was her “free will” speaking (do you wingies up above really want to get into the free will argument?). Fortunately, my mother’s neurosurgeon told us that, Idaho law be damned, if the family didn’t want to see wife/mother in a persistent vegetative state, such could be arranged. That happened. That was a doctor doing the right thing. I haven’t had a doubt since; none of us have. The right to die is in many of our western states’ constitutions, if you read between the lines, which is where constitutions are meant to be read. Get used to it, wingies.
For the three stooges at 110-12…
Uhhh…ya know how you can tell someboddy is REALLY dumb when you have to explain a joke to them…
So at #109, ‘ol rujax was kinda doing everybody a big favor by presenting ‘ol stupid-as-a-shitstick marvin’s post in a “cliff notes” version:
…so others wouldn’t have to kill brain cells reading his juvenile tripe. I’m sure the reference and the meaning and the intent was not lost on the commenters here. Point of fact, ‘ol rujax doesn’t even condiser that one of his better bon mots’…but he was “playing down” to the level of the competition.
Now for my “special” friends on the short-bus…Larry, Moe and Curly…OH, I mean pissy, marvie and the aptly named “yuck”…here’s a careful expalnation what I did, so you won’t get lost…I reduced the marvin’s feeble attempts at flaming to the kindergarten taaunt that it is:
I hope that sets the record straight for the “reading comprehension challenged”.
(FUCK…they all really ARE that stupid aren’t they. That is sooooo pathetic.)
Why shouldn’t depressed people have the right to die?
If it’s a “right,” why should the government decide some people have the right and others don’t?
Incorrect assumption rujax.
If no one laughs, the joke isn’t funny. Don’t blame others for your lack of intentional humor, after all, you are the running joke on this blog so you are very funny in your own special way.
True, jokes should have some truth to them. You asking why you’re an idiot had waaaaay too much truth in it to be considered a joke even by the dumbest of the dumb. Oops, I was wrong. You thought it was a joke so there goes my assumption that even the dumbest of the dumb didn’t think it was a joke.
SJ @ 114
re: “hemlock”, interesting point. I haven’t planned my exit strategy yet. I should probably figure that out ahead of time. My hope is that I simply die in my sleep, but hope isn’t a plan.
less is more @ 99
You’re a good son.
I refused painkillers, because I didn’t want to become addicted. That was dumb. We’ve learned a lot about pain and toxicity these last twenty years. When treating pain, morphine is not addictive. It’s only addictive when used recreationally.
Alas, there’s still a lot of ignorance.
ivan @ 73
Good point. I wouldn’t want anyone compelled to help end my life. But then, I don’t live in rural Montana either. Hopefully I’ll have the good sense to die near civilization.
Obviously spoken by an elitist dumb fuck that hasn’t been to Montana nor interracted with the salt of the earth people that live there.
With disdain like that for people and places no wonder you lost the election.
Are you near civilization now? Any plans?
@118 Stamm
The law in WASTATE has the wierd requirement that the person asking for hekmlock not be depressed.
Not my idea.
As Darryl would say be “clearer in your presentation” clusterfucked cinderblock. Since you are a clear as mud in 99% of your entries, Puddy guesses you did the best you could given what God delivered to you as sperm and egg chromosomes!
Marvin Stamn @ 122
I’m sorry you choose to purposefully misunderstand my comment.
A large factor in why I’ve chosen to stay in Seattle, turning down great jobs elsewhere, is because I’m nearest to some of the best medical care on the planet and the few people who have experience with my diseases. And we have extensive hospice facilities.
A friend travels to Seattle every couple of weeks for his medical treatment, occasionally staying with me. It’s a terrible hardship on him and his family. He lives in Eastern WA. Gorgeous place. God’s country. Where do you think he wishes he lived now?
When you get sick or frail, where do you want to live? If you answer Butte, Missoula, Billings, or Bozeman, then you’re just like me. If you live in farm country (or equivalent), and you want to tough it out, then you’re like my grandfather.
As for civilization, I’m near universities and thai food, so I think I’m set.