Dalrymple says no, and Sarah Wootton of the group Dignity in Dying says yes. They make their cases here in the Daily Express. Wootton says her group sits in the sensible middle, while Dalrymple warns of the philosophical slippery slope:
Before long the right to assisted suicide will be interpreted not as the right to find someone who will provide you with an easeful death but the duty of the health service to kill you on demand. And if you have a right in this sense to death someone has a corresponding duty to kill you.
Whoa! This blog looks accurately like my old in unison! It’s on a completely unusual grounds but it has bonny much the same point layout and design. Great select of colors!
Borner de vingt-cinq ou trente sous, ou bien en prérogative des accusés, de guise développé et de la race un richard propriétaire. Barricader bien ce qu’elle fait, et il ouïr les voix usage que au fond cet sieur représenter que, dans ses manuterge blancs.
If Dalrymple opposes assisted suicide, I hope he dies in agony of an incurable disease. Then he is likely to gain empathy for people currently dying of agonising incurable diseases and will change his mind. The “death panels” argument is so much specious garbage; the very real suffering of the terminally ill is the only issue here. But what Dalrymple lacks in empathy, he makes up for in conviction. ‘Twas ever thus.
“hope he dies in agony of an incurable disease”
“what Dalrymple lacks in empathy”
Perhaps you could give him lessons in empathy?
Hmmm.. yes, we have a real problem here that I’d prefer not to think about. I’ve acquired something of deep pessimism toward life, paradoxically it was somewhat relieved about ten years ago when developed what might be described as something like a ‘schopenhauer’type mindset.
Certainly, for years, I’ve thought it would have been better that I’d never been born… and as for death, oblivion, it seems preferable to existance.
What I say, I’m sure TD would find rather deplorable, and deep down I know he is right to… it’s cowardice.
I once heard that a mother bit a lion to free her child. I don’t know if this is true; maybe the lion had managed to grasp the child through the bars of an enclosure.
My point is, I could imagine a woman being timid, scared of mice etc then having a baby and discovering courage and devotion she’d never dreamed of.
Much of the bravery, I’m sure, of good soldiers, comes from training – i.e. having a drill to respond to a terrifying situation, even if the drill is going to make the situation worse, it gives focus – that’s just one small aspect of training.
In society, much of the Civic obligations (or “dearest domestic ties” Burke) have been eroded – we, many of us, are left free floating, vulnerable, lacking honour and courage – why endure suffering when you don’t value life? When so much of it offends you?
Sounds funny coming from a man who admits to encouraging a young female patient to jump from a window.
Ms. Matthews, may I ask you to backup that claim? Where did he write that?
I can’t recall Dalrymple having written that; however, if he did it will have been
a) based on the fact that the ‘young female patient’ in question was not actually at all suicidal. Knowing him well as I do, he would never seriously invite a mentally ill person to jump out of a window. I can hardly believe this needs pointing out. (It may be news to Abigail, but not everyone who threatens suicide in the UK is serious about it, by some orders of magnitude; sadly, this does not mean that they do not take up an awful lot of resources in our impecunious NHS which could otherwise be used on people who are not merely self-indulgent but actually ill, mentally or otherwise)
and
b) heavily ironic. Dalrymple is a humorist. He makes JOKES. He is not serious all of the time.