The Politics of Suicide : Brittany Maynard.

 

Beautiful Women on a cover
of a known magazine .
Suicide  is now
Glamorized ?

(1)> Suicide is the worst thing anyone can do. The recent suicide of Brittany Maynard, who became the public face of the controversial right-to-die movement over the last few weeks, ended her own life Saturday at her home in Portland, Oregon. She was 29. Doctors told Maynard she had six months to live last spring after she was diagnosed with a likely stage 4 glioblastoma. She made headlines around the world when she announced she intended to die – under Oregon's Death with Dignity Act – by taking a fatal dose of barbiturates, prescribed to her by a doctor, when her suffering became too great.  I am really sorry about her , you can almost feel her pain . I am altogether writing this , not just to point how disturbing it is . (2)>  It reveals much about our society and it's changing morals.But society’s big mistake is in believing that suicide can be a compassionate or dignified choice. Suicide is suicide. There is nothing that can change that. You can make it legal. You can make it seem less horrible by using needles instead of some rope and a chair or a gun. You can put a beautiful woman on the cover of a celebrity magazine as a spokeswoman. But it’s still suicide, and the reality is that anyone who commits suicide, or even ponders it, is suffering deeply. Attempting suicide is against the law (sort of). The police take you to a hospital to have you evaluated and if you are considered a danger to yourself or someone else you may be committed to a hospital. , but it is no joking matter. Theory is if you want to commit suicide you may have a chemical imbalance or are suffering due to something bad that happened in your life. There are only a few states that allow suicide even for the terminally ill. *** Brittany may think her choice is a highly personal and private one, but it is not. Already, her decision has reignited hotly contested debates as to whether physician-assisted suicide should be expanded beyond the five states where it is legal. Proponents of Brittany’s decision are already using her story as a bully pulpit to advance their so-called death-with-dignity agendas. There are good laws throughout the U.S. that help people die with dignity — laws that provide advanced pain management therapies for people dealing with intractable pain. Plus, people have the legal right to refuse treatment if they don’t want it.In addition, legalizing physician-assisted suicide in more states may send a bad signal to families who have little access to health care dollars: Would we be saying to low-income families, “We won’t provide health care for your critical condition, but we can make it easier for you to commit suicide”?---Obama Care.The culture of death that pervades our society is sickening. Abortion, suicide, doctor assisted murder etc are all part and parcel of this warped culture that the gullible and easily manipulated have bought into. This woman's diagnosis was tragic, her death a crime. There are ways to mitigate suffering, having doctors assist you in killing yourself should never be one of them.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

*** The biggest problem with assisted suicide is gauging the intent of the person. If the infirmity is mental in nature, they may not have the capacity to consent to such an act (which is what got Kevorkian into trouble).The only thing worse is using a religious appeal to chime in on the subject. Religious attitudes towards suicide are arbitrary and contradictory at best. Pretty much any time religious dogma gets involved with medical science, nothing good comes from it. Be it on the subject of abortion, life supporting equipment, or in this case assisted suicide. It creates hard arbitrary rules where flexible context dependent actions are required. (1)> Just two months ago, the cover of People magazine was a tribute to late actor Robin Williams, who had just taken his own life. As they put it, Williams, “lost his battle with mental illness.” That they considered his death a tragedy was eminently clear. Fast-forward to the most recent issue, and People has an entirely different take on suicide.This week’s People features Brittany Maynard, the 29 year-old woman with terminal cancer who captured national attention when she moved to Oregon in order to be able to legally end her life. People’s coverage of her pending suicide is wholly different from its coverage of William’s suicide. The coverage of Maynard includes language like “die in peace” and “heart of a warrior.” (2)> A Pew Research Center survey conducted last year found that two-thirds of Americans say there are circumstances in which a patient should be allowed to die, as opposed to doctors and nurses always doing everything possible to save the life of a patient. But U.S. adults are more divided about laws that allow doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, with 47% in favor of such laws and 49% opposed. Views on doctor-assisted suicide are little changed since 2005.