Hi again Nash,
A few thoughts before I turn in, I probably wont be able to post anything again till Monday, so please don't think I'm ignoring any reply you make.
Originally posted by Nash
Seagoon,
Words give us away.
You tell the story of a premature birth... And despite all odds, and with every technology and therapy at his disposal he now grows to twelve years old, needs around the clock care and will need it for the rest of his life.
In considering the alternative, you say: "caused to die."
That's a very peculiar choice of words.
A lot of people would say, "caused to live."
You are quite right of course, words do give away our worldview. I will freely admit that I believe that Human life has
inherent rather than merely
instrumental value and that life is a good and precious gift, and that death is a bad thing, and not something that was intended to be or remain the norm - hence my being called to be about the business of
eternal life rather than
annihilation or
death.
Funny, I too was "caused to live," I don't just mean that in the sense of being brought into existence or regenerated, I mean it literally. My life was saved as an infant only because I was given a long regimen of antibiotics. Had I been born into an uncaring family, I'd be dead.
Now, what justified that application of antibiotics? The thought that with them I might eventually become a productive member of society? Ok then, what happens when I eventually cease to be a productive member, and become nothing but a drain, do I lose the right to continue to live? What if my parents could have somehow known that I'd grow up to be a career criminal, would that have justified a decision
not to give me the antibiotics that "caused me to live"? The child in my congregation, does his right to be kept alive hinge on being able to make progress? To meet and continue some sort of arbitrary minimum standards for cognition? Do we "cause a newborn to live" only because we hope that while it currently is non-cognitive, and totally dependent we hope that it will
eventually meet our minimum standards for life?
Nash, I hope you'll give
this article a read, if only so we can discuss the issue of inherent or instrumental value to life, and the consequences of our decisions in this regard further.
One thing I find interesting. Many are hesitant to plunge straight in to the "Euthanasia good when quality of life unacceptably low" equation, because they see where the mathematics leads and instead cleave to the more popular "Euthansia to end suffering" argument. However in Terry's case, no one is arguing that she is suffering in being kept alive, in fact those arguing for the removal of the feeding tube maintain that she is incapable of really feeling anything. Therefore, the only suffering that is potentially being ended is the "suffering" of her husband, and Euthanasia to end someone elses anguish has an even worse trajectory than the quality of life equation...
BTW - food for thought - I was interested to find that that the term or practice of
Euthanasia (a compound Greek word meaning literally "Good Death") didn't show up in any of my commentaries or works on Ethics prior to the second half of the 20th century. It isn't even listed in my Webster's 1913 edition. This is because the term was first coined and widely used by the Nazis in connection with the T4 "Euthanasia" program. Speaking of the T4 program which euthanized mainly senile adults and handicapped or retarded children, it is an interesting historical note that:
"Sometimes they were put to death by injection, occasionally by carbon monoxide gas but usually they were killed by starvation." - SEAGOON
