{"id":7880,"date":"2012-10-14T19:11:18","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T19:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=7880"},"modified":"2012-10-14T19:11:18","modified_gmt":"2012-10-14T19:11:18","slug":"must-try-harder-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/must-try-harder-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Must Try Harder (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Writing<\/a> in The Wall Street Journal<\/em>, a Roman Catholic priest, Tadeusz Pacholczyk, tries to throw in (I think) a little irony in support of his church\u2019s campaign against assisted suicide:<\/p>\n

In the November elections, voters in Massachusetts will decide on “Question 2,” a ballot initiative to allow physicians to prescribe (but not administer) a lethal dose of a toxic drug to assist their patients in committing suicide. Advocates of physician-assisted suicide assure us that this can be a good choice for someone who is dying, or who wants to die.<\/p>\n

If physician-assisted suicide really represents a good choice, we need to ask: Why should only physicians be able to participate? Why should only physicians be allowed to undermine public trust in their profession through these kinds of death-dealing activities?<\/p>\n

Why not include police? If a sick person expresses a wish to die, the police could be notified, and an officer would arrive bearing a suitable firearm. He would load it with ammunition, cock the gun and place it on the bedside stand of the sick patient. After giving instruction on the best way to angle the barrel, the officer would depart, and the patient could then pick up the device and take it from there\u2014police-assisted suicide.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh good grief. Please try harder, Father. You surely can do better than that. Mercifully, Pacholczyk then changes tack. He offers up a couple of true life stories that allegedly make the case against assisted suicide:<\/p>\n

I remember reading a letter to the editor in the local paper of a small town many years ago. A woman wrote in about the death of her grandparents\u2014well-educated, intelligent and seemingly in control of their faculties\u2014who had tragically committed suicide together by drinking a deadly substance. They were elderly and struggling with various ailments.<\/p>\n

Her firsthand perspective was unflinching: It took her years to forgive her grandparents. She was angry at what they had done to her and her family. She felt betrayed and nauseated. She could hardly believe it had really happened.<\/p>\n

The woman was still upset that they hadn’t reached out to the rest of the family for assistance. She dismissed the idea that suicide could ever be a good thing as a “total crock and a lie\u2026”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because, you see, it was all about her<\/em>. What her grandparents wanted for their own lives counted, apparently, for nothing. She cannot have loved them very much. Not really. Not truly. <\/p>\n

And then we have this:<\/p>\n

A friend of mine in Canada has struggled with multiple sclerosis for many years. He often speaks out against assisted suicide.<\/p>\n

Recently, he sent me a picture of himself taken with his smiling grandchildren, one sitting on each arm of his wheelchair. Below the picture he wrote, “If I had opted for assisted suicide back in the mid-1980s when I first developed MS, and it seemed life as I knew it was over, look what I would have missed. I had no idea that one day I would be head over heels in love with grandchildren! Never give up on life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eh?<\/p>\n

In the early stages of his disease (and perhaps even now) this man could have opted for suicide by his own hand. He has chosen not to, and he continues to lead an apparently rich and fulfilled life. Good for him. He made the right choice, but what is right for him is not right for everyone, and is no argument at all for depriving (in particular) the helpless of their chance for release.<\/p>\n

By the weakness of this almost insultingly feeble article, Father Pacholczyk reveals yet again how little intellectual force there is to the argument against assisted suicide once those who make it stray from the religious ideology on which their case is, in reality, based, a religious ideology that should not be enforced on those who disagree with it.<\/p>\n

The answer to Massachusetts\u2019s Question Two should be yes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, a Roman Catholic priest, Tadeusz Pacholczyk, tries to throw in (I think) a little irony in support of his church\u2019s campaign against assisted suicide: In the November elections, voters in Massachusetts will decide on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[325,971],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7880"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7883,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7880\/revisions\/7883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}