In A World Without Abortion

[Hassan]

[quote name='Winchester' post='1932570' date='Jul 26 2009, 03:46 PM']If you view your life as your own possession, then it's acceptable to take your own life. Catholics don't.[/quote]

And I understand and more or less respect this view.

That still does not explain why you feel the need to legally coerce others to conform to your understanding of life.

[Hassan]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1932730' date='Jul 26 2009, 06:53 PM']Have you ever been touched by a suicide? I remember helping a woman from church clean up after her husband's suicide. She wanted the blood out of the house before her kids flew in for the funeral. He had been caught embezzling from the government. He didn't end his pain. He just transferred his pain to his wife and children. His suicide was certainly imposed on them.[/quote]

Yes. When I was little an older boy I admired as a sort of role model with whom I took Karate and attended school had a manic break (he was bi polar). The police finially were bringing him home and he hung himself by his shoe laces while in custody.

Your friends story is sad. I do however think that there is a significant difference between a healthy father and husband making a spontaneous decision to blow his brains out in the living room and a terminally ill eighty year old deciding to turn the morphine up after doctor consultations, time to get his affairs in order and more pain than he can continue to bear.

[XIX]

Obviously I'm 100% anti-euthanasia.

But I still think it's a bit out of place to compare euthanasia to shooting oneself in the head--at least within the realm of debate. You end up assuming what you should be trying to prove. The comparison works if we presuppose that euthanasia is intrinsically sinful. It makes sense to people who are already pro-life. Not so much to people who are pro-euthanasia or who waffle on the issue.

[CatherineM]

I wasn't trying to make the point that assisted suicide is that same as someone blowing their brains out. I was trying to make the point that suicide isn't just a personal decision without ramifications to other people. When you devalue life, even a short life, even a painful life, it makes it easier and easier to devalue all forms of life.

[Hassan]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1932792' date='Jul 26 2009, 09:35 PM']When you devalue life, even a short life, even a painful life, it makes it easier and easier to devalue all forms of life.[/quote]

I don't see how believing that murder, abortion, euthanasia et cetera are wrong because that life belongs to God is a statement of more or less intrinsic value. Within the texts of scripture that owner often seems capricious, arbitrary, and at times simply sadistic or barbaric with his property. It's not actually valuing life any more, it's just a dispute over ownership.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote name='thessalonian' post='1932216' date='Jul 25 2009, 11:31 PM']Considering that ethenasia is at least in large part a product of abortion I don't think it would go much in that direction. My guess is we would be able to focus more on the poor and needy. Capital punishment? Perhaps. Though captital punishment is undesirable it is not against Church teaching when there is just reason. The focus may go to making sure the reasons are just. JP II did not think it was neccessary in today's society. I would say it is not in the US.[/quote]

that's too easy to say. it's the expected answer, etc.
there's nothing stopping anyone from devoting time to these issues now.

they'd go to controversial issues, less on this. gays, euthanasia, contraception, etc. and helping the poor would always be the well spoke of thing, that isn't done.

[Angel*Star]

[quote name='Varg' post='1932349' date='Jul 26 2009, 07:39 AM']I don't get why people hate euthanasia so much[/quote]

[Gregorius]

The Catholic Church does more charity around the world than all other christian groups combined, and most likely more than any other single group.

In my rather insignificant opinion, a problem with the pro-life movements is that abortion gets so much attention when in actuality other life concerns also have huge groups.

[Varg]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1932463' date='Jul 26 2009, 02:24 PM']There have been so many wonderful things in my life that I would have missed had I chosen euthanasia rather than live in pain.[/quote]That's good (out of interest, what were you suffering from?)

[quote name='T-Bone _' post='1932358' date='Jul 26 2009, 08:40 AM']It's called murder.[/quote]No it isn't: murder is involuntary, euthanasia is voluntary. Get that into your head, please.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Varg' post='1934628' date='Jul 29 2009, 05:01 AM']No it isn't: murder is involuntary, euthanasia is voluntary. Get that into your head, please.[/quote]
Are you using the moral definition of murder or the legal?

My friend defines murder as unjust taking of a life, or intentional killing (and please don't start on that one. Look up exactly what that means, from a moral standpoint). I've already kindly explained why your approach is meaningless to Catholics. I'm not sure if you've been told that from our perspective our lives are not our own. He's right, suicide can be called murder.

Get that into your head.

[Sirklawd]

[quote name='Varg' post='1934628' date='Jul 29 2009, 04:01 AM']That's good (out of interest, what were you suffering from?)

No it isn't: murder is involuntary, euthanasia is voluntary. Get that into your head, please.[/quote]


not the euthenasia's ive personally been a part of, its always been a group decision.

every single one had these parts:
1. patient in bed, often cant speak because of an accident or because of a medical condition or something, usually cant move that much
2. family members get it in their head that this person doesnt want to live like this. OR family members get it in their head that THEY dont want to live with their family member like this...
3. feeding stops.
4. patient slowly starves to death over the next 2 weeks
4a. they (naturally) start to "look worse" (weaker, sicker) - cuz they arnt friggin eating - which only encourages the feelings from step 2
5. patient gets flooded with anti-pain meds
6. the patient starves to death and is usually too high on pain meds to notice

everyone for euthenasia should watch a person starve to death over the course of a week or two.

honestly it comes down to two choices. either A. that people have the right, of their own opinion, to end their own lives if they decide things get too tough. or B. no matter what, life is better than death, and there is hope.

Which world do you want to encourage? We are for B.

[Winchester]

That's an emotional argument, easily defeated. I'll answer for the kid: Shotgun's fast.

[kamiller42]

[quote name='Gregorius' post='1934573' date='Jul 29 2009, 02:53 AM']The Catholic Church does more charity around the world than all other christian groups combined, and most likely more than any other single group.

In my rather insignificant opinion, a problem with the pro-life movements is that abortion gets so much attention when in actuality other life concerns also have huge groups.[/quote]
Thank you. I was waiting for someone to say it.

I don't like the implication of the question, that the Church doesn't currently expend energy in other social causes. The Church is not a one trick pony. It can accomplish many things at once.

In regards to suicide and murder, intentional killing of the innocent is murder. Voluntary or involuntary does not matter.

[Sirklawd]

[quote name='Winchester' post='1934672' date='Jul 29 2009, 09:18 AM']That's an emotional argument, easily defeated. I'll answer for the kid: Shotgun's fast.[/quote]

what I posted wasnt about method, it was about the supposed "voluntary" aspect of euthanasia.

[CatherineM]

[quote name='Varg' post='1934628' date='Jul 29 2009, 04:01 AM']That's good (out of interest, what were you suffering from?)[/quote]

I was attacked in 1991. Thrown down a marble staircase, stabbed, strangled. I suffered a head injury, a knee injury and a pretty bad back injury. I eventually ended up in a wheelchair for 8 years. I still walk with a crutch, and am in pain most of the time, but don't take anything stronger than tylenol. I've seen people with chronic pain get on the pain meds merry-go-round, and that's a place I don't want to go.