"Or if wet, in the library."

[spanambula]

Author Terry Pratchett wrote a very moving article about 'assisted suicide' (a term he objects to) procedures in the UK, in light of his own condition. It's not terribly long, and like most of his writing, worth your time:

"Life is easy and cheap to make. But the things we add to it, such as pride, self-respect and human dignity, are worthy of

Comments

[westmarked]

While Mr. Pratchett and others are in the position to make "furiously sane" decisions, and decide when they've had enough, how do we safeguard those who aren't? Or those who only think they are. Autonomy is critically important, but at the expense of setting legislative precedents with possibly terrifying ramifications?

But what if autonomy isn't critically important? What makes us think that autonomy outranks life, in any circumstance? My main objection to Pratchett is that his stated position denies any value life might have on its own; life is defined as worth living only if it meets certain attributes, conveniently decided here by Pratchett. But deciding what lives are worth living are not the sorts of decisions I want anyone--individuals, doctors, HMOs, or governments--to decide. In fact I deny that there is is a legitimate decision to make.

Our culture is "sufficiently advanced" to allow the mass slaughter of children on the grounds that they are not persons worthy of a right to life, and that women are entitled to autonomy over their bodies. (And both men and women are entitled to autonomy--meaning a lack of consequences--regarding their sex lives.) Once we've escaped that insanity, I might start trusting the moral wisdom of our society a bit more.

[spanambula]

I couldn't access LJ for the past 24 hours, so I just read this. I need to think for a bit before I respond. Just wanted you to know my silence was that of the spinning hourglass rather than the "This program is not responding" ;-)