euthanasia law for kids

[vraiblonde]

If I am not healthy how am I able to pursue my right to life, liberty, happiness?

Talk to God - He makes those rules, not me.

You can be alive, free, and happy with less than perfect health. I know, I've seen people do it.

You do not have a right to be healthy.

And PS, you don't have a right to be alive, either. If that were the case, nobody would ever die.

 

[PsyOps]

Health is not a right. Especially if you believe "rights" are God-given.

Again, health is something that is required for life itself. Without good health life is not possible. Life is a right defined by our founding documents.

 

[vraiblonde]

Again, health is something that is required for life itself. Without good health life is not possible. Life is a right defined by our founding documents.

That is not true. You do not need to be healthy to be alive, and I can point to any number of sick people to prove it.

Life is NOT guaranteed by any document, nor is it anything the Founding Fathers had the capability to provide with the exception of their own personal procreation. No document can give you life or health. The end. Period.

If you still want to argue that it does, you are mental and should seek help.

 

[PsyOps]

Talk to God - He makes those rules, not me.

You can be alive, free, and happy with less than perfect health. I know, I've seen people do it.

You do not have a right to be healthy.

And PS, you don't have a right to be alive, either. If that were the case, nobody would ever die.

Now you’re just making stuff up. I have a right to be alive and you do not have the right to deprive me of that life. Only nature determines that I eventually die. The purpose of defining rights is to limit other people from depriving you of those rights; not the natural course of things, like dying. Do I need to cite the Declaration of Independence? How do you interpret the ‘right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”?

You’re starting to quibble with specific terms that aren’t necessary. I am not talking about perfect health. There is no such thing; not any more than there is any such thing as the perfect insurance policy, or the perfect shoe. If I have cancer, my health is at risk, thus threatening my right to life. No one should have the authority to refuse to care for me, as long as I can pay for it that would deprive me my right to life; not any more than Safeway can refuse to sell me food. You do agree we have a right to food too?

 

[Larry Gude]

Will you explain what you mean by this? If health care is not a right, then what is it? A privilege? A luxury?

If I require care for an ailment, in the name of my ‘right to life’ do I not have a right to access to all those things that ensure my ‘right to life’? Isn’t healthcare an key element in this? If it's something we need (akin to food and oxygen), don't we have a right to it?

:shrug:

Health care is both products and service. Pay for them. In a free market.

Health care has become an expected right over time culminating with the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment Act, signed by my hero, that says you do, in fact, have right to the goods and services of others, regardless of ability to pay because we, the people have decided it shall be so.

So, it should NOT be a right. I should have said that instead of 'it is not a right'.

 

[Larry Gude]

If I require care for an ailment, in the name of my ‘right to life’ do I not have a right to access to all those things that ensure my ‘right to life’? Isn’t healthcare an key element in this? If it's something we need (akin to food and oxygen), don't we have a right to it?

:shrug:

If you can pay for it, have all you like.

However, we don't have a free market in medicine. We have socialized medicine.
Before the ACA.

 

[vraiblonde]

If you can pay for it, have all you like.

Just like food at the Safeway.

You do not have a right to food. You have a right to grow food, or buy food, but you do not have a right to just have food magically appear with no effort on your part.

Same as health care.

 

[PsyOps]

If you can pay for it, have all you like.

However, we don't have a free market in medicine. We have socialized medicine.
Before the ACA.

This is not completely true... pre ACA I could opt out of insurance and pay, out of pocket, as I get care. There is nothing socialize about that.

And 'pay for it' applies to guns as well, yet it is a right. So... :shrug:

 

[PsyOps]

Health care is both products and service. Pay for them. In a free market.

Health care has become an expected right over time culminating with the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment Act, signed by my hero, that says you do, in fact, have right to the goods and services of others, regardless of ability to pay because we, the people have decided it shall be so.

So, it should NOT be a right. I should have said that instead of 'it is not a right'.

You last sentence makes no sense to me. If it should not be a right, that translates to 'it's not a right'.

Healthcare is expected because it's needed. If you get sick you need healthcare in order to live. Just the same, if you find you need protection in your home it's your right to buy guns for that protection in order to live.

The right to life doesn't live in a vacuum. There are conditions on ensuring life is protected, and that not just being what is defined in words in the DOI. Food, shelter, clothing, guns, and healthcare... all are required to maintain your right to life.

 

[PsyOps]

Just like food at the Safeway.

You do not have a right to food. You have a right to grow food, or buy food, but you do not have a right to just have food magically appear with no effort on your part.

Same as health care.

Really? Are you really playing this game of semantics with me? I did not say ‘have’ as in free. With everything requires effort, even living. Having the right to life doesn’t mean that you just sit in your basement and do nothing: not eat, not drink, not get treatment when sick, not go to the bathroom. You have to DO things in order to live life. These rights only mean that someone else cannot deprive you of obtaining these things that are necessary to life.

I have to go DO something to obtain everything. And I agree we all must DO things in order to obtain those things; like get a job and earn money to pay for it. The pursuit of life is an individual effort, but our right to it is still protected under the constitution. All the things that sustain your life are also a right for you to obtain them; if you so choose.

Every right is choice to exercise it or not. But in order to exercise it, certain prerequisites have to exist. If I want to exercise my right to speech a forum to be heard has to be obtained. If I want to exercise my religious rights, certain forums have to be available to practice that. In order for me and my affects to be secure I first have to have those affects and the means to secure them. In order for me to exercise my right to keep and bear arms I have to actually go buy a gun. The things that are used to exercise our rights have to be protected as rights as well. That’s why so much fight has been made about protecting gun ownership and gun rights. Gun rights aren’t much without guns. Living life isn’t much good without food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare. But we have to obtain those things. We don’t disagree that they aren’t – and were never intended to be – laid in our laps.

 

[vraiblonde]

Really? Are you really playing this game of semantics with me? I did not say ‘have’ as in free. With everything requires effort, even living. Having the right to life doesn’t mean that you just sit in your basement and do nothing: not eat, not drink, not get treatment when sick, not go to the bathroom. You have to DO things in order to live life. These rights only mean that someone else cannot deprive you of obtaining these things that are necessary to life.

I have to go DO something to obtain everything. And I agree we all must DO things in order to obtain those things; like get a job and earn money to pay for it. The pursuit of life is an individual effort, but our right to it is still protected under the constitution. All the things that sustain your life are also a right for you to obtain them; if you so choose.

Every right is choice to exercise it or not. But in order to exercise it, certain prerequisites have to exist. If I want to exercise my right to speech a forum to be heard has to be obtained. If I want to exercise my religious rights, certain forums have to be available to practice that. In order for me and my affects to be secure I first have to have those affects and the means to secure them. In order for me to exercise my right to keep and bear arms I have to actually go buy a gun. The things that are used to exercise our rights have to be protected as rights as well. That’s why so much fight has been made about protecting gun ownership and gun rights. Gun rights aren’t much without guns. Living life isn’t much good without food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare. But we have to obtain those things. We don’t disagree that they aren’t – and were never intended to be – laid in our laps.

Then perhaps I'm missing your point. If you are saying that one must earn the money to purchase one's "rights" - such as food, guns, health care, etc - and they aren't just given by the government paid for by tax dollars, then we are in agreement.

Aside:

I just today received a notice that as of Jan 1, 2013 lol I was supposed to be taking .9% extra out of employee paychecks for Medicare for earners making $200k/year or more. This was imposed by the ACA (Obamacare for those who haven't been paying attention). Neither David nor I make that kind of money, but I crunched the numbers anyway:

If you make $200,000, that's an extra $1800 per year that you're out. Now, to some minimum wage kid, $200k sounds like a pissload of money, and if you live in a low cost state you're doing okay for yourself. But here in MD, for example, $200k isn't all that. And losing $2000 per year of income is gonna pinch.

What's fun is that most multi-bazillionaires don't receive what we think of as "income" - as in, they take dividends and other payout forms that aren't subject to Medicare and SS. So this new Medicare tax hits right at the working middle class and the rich will still be skating.

 

[luvmygdaughters]

I wonder sometimes if its the physcians/surgeons ego that drives them to save lives that shouldn't be prolonged. I knew a man whose dad was diagonosed with cancer. It had gotten into the lympth nodes and was progressing rapidly. They did 3 surgeries on that poor man, none was sucessful in stopping the progression. All they did was prolong his agony and pain as well as the families.

 

[b23hqb]

Stop this talk right now by just reading the ongoing thread "When was the last time Americans took up arms?"

We need to change directions. Or we will be the world, not America.

Lock and load, Amerika!

Can only hope this is helping overload NSA.

 

[Larry Gude]

I wonder sometimes if its the physcians/surgeons ego that drives them to save lives that shouldn't be prolonged. I knew a man whose dad was diagonosed with cancer. It had gotten into the lympth nodes and was progressing rapidly. They did 3 surgeries on that poor man, none was sucessful in stopping the progression. All they did was prolong his agony and pain as well as the families.

Ego? Hardly. Where is the satisfaction in working your ass off to perform good work that you KNOW is going to go to waste?

Doctors are stuck in a vicious cycle of working in a system that requires them to perform work and procedures, and call for others to perform likewise, so that all backs are scratched and the system gets its due.

Bureaucracies are like that. You are part of the gang, protected, looked after, but, at a cost.

 

[vraiblonde]

I wonder sometimes if its the physcians/surgeons ego that drives them to save lives that shouldn't be prolonged. I knew a man whose dad was diagonosed with cancer. It had gotten into the lympth nodes and was progressing rapidly. They did 3 surgeries on that poor man, none was sucessful in stopping the progression. All they did was prolong his agony and pain as well as the families.

The patient and family can stop it at any time; the doctor is only doing what they want him/her to do. No doctor can insist that you get any treatment, from cancer to a hangnail.

 

[BadGirl]

My mom suffered a massive stroke where she was left without use of 1/2 of her body (she was paralized on one side of her body), she was unable to speak, unable to care for herself AT ALL. She lived this way for 3 1/2 years, receiving 24-hour care from her family and independently-paid nurses the majority of time (she was in two sub-standard nursing homes for a bit before we pulled her out).

Anyway, I was with her when she suffered a massive heart attack. She seized up and moved BOTH of her arms up toward her chest area. This is particularly noteworthy, because she moved one of her arms that was paralyzed, and which she'd been unable to move for 3 1/2 years.

I knew she was dying, but we (my wonderful sisters and I) had made a calculated decision that, if mom's health deterioted in any way, we would NOT do anything to assist her situation. No EMT, no ambulance, no nothing. She did not die immediately, but did linger on for a few days until she did pass. During this time, we did relent and had her transferred to the hospice unit at the hospital, but we withheld medication and food from her. She passed after three days.

After caring for her for 3.5 years, and being a witness to her general unhappiness at her physical limitations, I can say that it was a great blessing when she died.

I am so glad that I did not call 911 when she suffered her last heart attack.

I would be remiss if I didn't fully recognize the help ALL of my sisters provided in my mom'a care after her stroke. Had not all five of my sisters contributed in very significant ways, her level of care would not have been as attentive and as successful as it was. My wonderful brothers-in-law also helped greatly.

It was a tremendous gift to have all of us working on the same goal - to provide mom with as much love and care as we could possibly give. Not one of us was divergent on that mission, so we had no fighting or arguing over her care, her doctors, or any other facet of her healthcare.

If just one of us had a selfish agenda, it would have changed things significantly.

I am so lucky for my sisters and my brothers-in-law (and by extension, their children who also helped considerably).

Providing care to a sick/injured loved one is exhausting, and I am so glad that I didn't have to give that care alone.

 

[Railroad]

The thing about this issue that strikes me is that the patient (if competent to do so) should be the one opting in or out of continued care. NO ONE can presume to know what the deepest desires of the patient are when such a time comes. And if the patient is no longer able to think or act to arrive at and communicate the decision, then it seems right to me to make the patient comfortable but not prolong the suffering. I think this approach agrees with the things I believe in terms of my Christian faith. We have a provision at law right now, called a "Living Will," which can be used to prohibit prolonging life or resuscitation. That kind of advance notice works only if the medical staff and family are provided with it; I don't know how to make sure it's on file in all the appropriate places, and I don't know how that works if one suffers an accident or sudden illness while away from home. The things being discussed in this thread are all good considerations when deciding what to stipulate in the Living Will.