Subj : Death Wish To : BOB KLAHN From : Lee Lofaso Date : Wed Nov 19 2014 11:50 pm Hello Bob, LL>> Brittany Maynard was terminally ill, given only a few LL>> short months to live, and was in much pain and suffering. LL>> She ended her life in Oregon, one of five states in the LL>> US that allows doctors to help assist the terminally LL>> ill of sound mind to do so. LL>> Our society chooses to condem people who decide to end LL>> their own lives, and forbids doctors and other health care LL>> workers to help them do it. Even though five states have LL>> When it becomes an impossibility, or undue hardship, to LL>> maintain a quality of life worth living, then an individual LL>> should have an absolute right to end his/her own life. BK> This argument has been going on a very long time. Long ago I BK> read a report on it, and it said there is no such thing as pain BK> that can't be controlled. They gave England as an example, where BK> the question didn't even come up. Do fish feel pain? PETA argued that fish do in fact feel pain, and gave a tutorial on how fishermen should go about catching and storing their fish. PETA has also argued that Cajuns are cruel because we boil our crawfish alive. On that, Cajuns found allies from lobster fishermen in Maine ... Each individual has his/her own tolerance for pain. Different thresholds, or levels, of pain. In some cases it is only a state of mind, rather than anything physical. In other cases, what would be excruciating pain can be mentally blocked out by some people. All without the use of drugs. In most cases, when a person is in a significant amount of pain, he/she needs medication in order to continue functioning in a normal way. And in some cases, simply to continue to exist. A cancer patient, in his/her last stages of life, might be totally dependent on morphine - just to get through the day. He/she may or may not even be aware of his/her own surroundings. But without the morphine, that individual would be in so much pain and suffering that it would be absolute torture to endure. BK> You see, in England they can give heroin to patients in extreme BK> pain. That is a big difference. We give morphine to those we deem in need. And we justify it on the same grounds as do those in England who give heroin to patients. BK> I don't know if it's true that there is no such thing as pain BK> that can't be alleviated, but I do know there is pain that can BK> be alleviated, but the drugs that do it are either illegal, or BK> so controlled you can't give them enough. A few decades ago we had a problem in America with heroin addicts. Nobody cared about them, as they were junkies who lived in our ghettoes. The nation's poor. The trash of society. Flash forward to a few short years ago. Painkillers, such as oxy-contin, were prescribed by doctors nationwide, patients being told those drugs were not addictive. Less than one percent of those who took those drugs would get hooked on them, is what people were told by doctors. And what happened? Three to six months later, those patients were asking their doctors where they could get some more of those pills. Well, the doctor had done his job, and the prescription had run out, so folks had to find another source. So who did they turn do? The Pusher Man. And now today's addicts are the middle class. The boy next door. The man across the street. The secretary at your office. All once hooked on painkillers prescribed by their doctors, now hooked on heroin. Only today's heroin is far more deadly than yesterday's stash. BK> Then there's the fear of making terminal patients drug addicts. It is not just terminal patients who are drug addicts. Rush Limbaugh was addicted to painkillers he got legally. How he got so many of them is beyond me. But then, maybe he was in a great deal of pain and being as big as he is well he probably needed them. BK> The other fear is, the drugs will shorten the patient's life. Yeah. That's like saying pot will stunt your growth. Nobody on painkillers/heroin is going to believe that. BK> Chose, 6 weeks of extreme pain, or 4 weeks free from pain. Not hard by my BK> thinking. Hit me, man! Hit me! I wanna feel good hoo ha! LL>> What about a baby born without a brain? Would it be okay LL>> for a doctor or a nurse to off the baby? I mean, the baby BK> An anacelephic baby doesn't live long and doesn't suffer. Scientists have successfully cloned frogs without a brain. In theory, the same could be done with humans. Would cloning humans for body parts be ethical? I doubt it. Which is why we should clone neandertals instead. --Lee --- MesNews/1.08.05.00-gb * Origin: news://felten.yi.org (2:203/2) .