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In an earlier column, I made a proposal that grew out of a conference we held at MSU about disability concerns and bioethics. I suggested that the State of Michigan needed to apologize for the many citizens who were involuntarily sterilized for eugenic reasons in state institutions between the 1930s and 1970s.

At the end of that column I hinted that I had my own personal apology to offer, as a result of the discussions at that conference. Here goes.

I wish now to apologize publicly for the teaching and writing I did around some cases that involved persons with disabilities who requested the “right to die” by refusing life-sustaining therapy. There were a number of such cases, most notably that of Elizabeth Bouvia in Riverside, CA, a sufferer from cerebral palsy who wished to starve herself to death. But to bring things home again to Michigan, I will use as an example the case of David Rivlin.

Rivlin was paralyzed in all four limbs and could not breathe on his own without the assistance of a ventilator. In the 1980s he was living in a nursing home near Detroit. He appealed to a county court to be allowed to die by having the ventilator disconnected. A psychiatrist judged him to be mentally competent to make such decisions. In keeping with the relatively new legal doctrine that competent patients had the right to refuse life-prolonging medical therapy, the judge ordered that Rivlin’s wishes could be carried out.

It was somewhat exciting for those of us working on bioethics in Michigan to have our own court decision, to follow in the footsteps of more famous decisions like the Quinlan ruling in New Jersey. Many physicians in that day refused to accept the patient’s right to refuse therapy and continued to insist that they could impose treatment on unwilling, dying patients, because doing anything else was tantamount to killing. I thought myself a champion of patient’s rights by agreeing with the decision of the county court in Rivlin’s case.

At the time of the Rivlin ruling, a few advocates for persons with disabilities complained about the decision, because Rivlin had never really talked with them to learn what other possibilities besides death and staying in a nursing home existed for a quadriplegic person on a ventilator. At the time I wondered who those busybodies thought they were. Rivlin had not asked for their help. Why were they sticking their noses into his very private and personal decision?

I am now embarrassed to realize how limited was the basis on which I made my decisions about David Rivlin. In hindsight, it has been very well documented that there was no medical need for Rivlin to be effectively incarcerated in a nursing home. If Rivlin had been given access to a reasonable amount of community resources, of the sort that other persons with disabilities were making use of at the time, he could have been moved out of the nursing home and probably could have had his own apartment. He could have been much more able to see friends, get outside a bit, and generally have a much more interesting and stimulating life. The reasons he gave for wanting to die were precisely how boring and meaningless life was for him.

This is the key lesson that disabilities advocates are trying to teach the rest of us. If we look at a case one way, it seems that the problem is the person’s physical disability. If we shift our view, we realize that the problem is not the disability, but rather the refusal of society to make reasonable and not terribly expensive accommodations to it.

There’s every reason to believe in hindsight that David Rivlin died unnecessarily, and that we who claimed to care about his “rights” should have been demanding that services be made available for him rather than that he be allowed to die. As one who argued the wrong thing back then, I apologize for my shortsightedness.

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Howard Brody, M.D., is a University Distinguished Professor in the College of Human Medicine at MSU and a family-practice physician.

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Once in awhile, you get proof that your work does make a difference. Today is one of those days.
 

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Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
 
Wow!!!
 

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Posted by ssywak (Member # 807) on :
 
Wow.

It's serious stuff, but...good work!
 

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Posted by Space Opera (Member # 6504) on :
 
That's so neat, sndrake. I wonder what the long-term effects of this apology will be.

space opera
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Space Opera (and others),

If Brody doesn't retreat from this position, it will send some shock waves through the disabilitiy community. Brody has been a staunch defender of cases like David Rivlin's. While he doesn't have Peter Singer's prominence, Brody's not a lightweight, by any means.

Right now, this is making the rounds through various disability and bioethics email lists.

And, no, I am not the only one forwarding it around. The first message I received containing the article was cc'd to about 30 people in the Chicago community - some in the disability community and others in the bioethics community.

Brody has said his defense of Rivlin's "RTD" was simplistic and shortsighted - a critique that we could suppose would extend to his colleagues that share the views he promoted for so many years.

Further, he said that we - in the disability community - had it right all along.

Part of my job, though, is to make sure that as many people as possible know about this. I just forwarded it to a colleague at the University of Vermont - he's spearheading an informational protest against Peter Singer and has a web page up to educate people on the issues. This belongs on that page.
 

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Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
 
Wow!

This has got to be a major, major breakthrough for your work.
 

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Posted by CStroman (Member # 6872) on :
 
May I say congratulations. Behold the power of one's voice.
 

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Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
 
Wow. That's awesome.

*stunned*

Would you be able to provide a link to your colleague's website? I'd like to take a look.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Just want to make a quick clarification - I'm just a point man for the disability community's opposition to simplistic "better dead than disabled" arguments. Not Dead Yet is the one disability rights organization that focusses on these issues alone, but about a dozen other national disability groups have taken formal positions against legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia. Even more organizations have taken positions against the liberalization of laws making it easier to end the lives of people under guardianship through withholding of things like food and water (via tube) or antibiotics.

Anyway, here's the site Singer Informational Protest Site
 

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Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
 

quote:

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This is the key lesson that disabilities advocates are trying to teach the rest of us. If we look at a case one way, it seems that the problem is the person’s physical disability. If we shift our view, we realize that the problem is not the disability, but rather the refusal of society to make reasonable and not terribly expensive accommodations to it.

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This gave me chills to read. How utterly awesome that he can see this!
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Belle,

it depends on how you look at it.

On one hand, it's less than awesome that it took Brody 15 years to have his epiphany. (Thanks to the advocacy of his "friends," Rivlin died in 1989)

OTOH, with so much of his professional identity and reputation invested in Rivlin personally and the issue in general, it IS awesome.

It's like a prosecutor coming forward and saying that someone they'd prosecuted just might have been innocent - but saying it after the person had been executed. It's really hard to back off of a position and say that maybe you had a hand in what turned out to be - at the least - a "wrongful death."

[ October 06, 2004, 01:48 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by Sara Sasse (Member # 6804) on :
 
What absolutely, unequivocally good news. How clear, how direct, how spot on.

Stephen, I will make sure Pence sees it eventually. I think he's caught up with something right now, but when things settle down I'll send him a link.
 

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Posted by Sara Sasse (Member # 6804) on :
 
I wish we had more people in popular view leading "normal" lives with disabilities. This is great (don't get me wrong!), but I'd cynically bet it doesn't get much play outside those already involved in the debate. We need both this and more commonplace examples of how life goes on in the entertainment area.

("Life Goes On" was such an awesome show on its own, but I think it also likely changed the reaction of some families who later had children with Down syndrome and other develomental disabilities.)

If Rivlin had had the images and stories of people with partial paralysis who were able to access all the appropriate resources, the alternatives might have been clearer to him from the start of his need. Who knows, maybe he would have become a "problem patient" ( ) and demanded it.

Both, dagummit. More more more!

[ October 06, 2004, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: Sara Sasse ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

quote:

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If Rivlin had had the images and stories of people with partial paralysis who were able to access all the appropriate resources, the alternatives might have been clearer to him from the start of his need. Who knows, maybe he would have become a "problem patient" ( smilie ) and demanded it.

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What have you found successful strategies to be? Does it help more to be compliant or a squeaky wheel? (Does it vary from situation to situation? Any rules of thumb?)

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No, there aren't really. A lot of it has to do with the luck of the draw. Obviously, if you're lucky enough to have supportive friends and family, it's much harder for the system to ride roughshod over you - the "path of least resistance" can become actually acquiescing to your demands. And getting rid of you and all your pesky friends.

There are certain personality types that seem to do OK - people with engaging personalities who are well-liked by staff, but these are also highly adaptable people who probably aren't sitting around moaning either about wanting to die or about moving out.

See, that's just one aspect of human nature that seems to get dropped out of these debates. The inherent adaptability of humans to all kinds of living situations. Even though a large percentage of people say they would rather die than go into a nursing home (I forget the percentage, but it was a survey a few years ago.), very few people are actually moved to suicide when they actually end up in one. They adapt somehow.

One of the little gems buried in that article "Blink and You Live" that I posted a few months ago was a survey of 300 people with "locked-in syndrome" in France. Out of that group, only 3 wanted to die. But it's the THREE that get stories written about them, movies made, and books written - not the other 270. As a result, the public gets no sense of context, and I'm not sure they even want it.

Mainstream bioethics doesn't seem to have much interest in it, either. (yeah, I know, them's fighting words)

I'll try to post later today, but this has turned into my "Singer" week - I have to give some edits to a disability magazine editor who interviewed both Singer and me. I have commentary in the article on him, which point out the places he's sloppy and/or dishonest.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

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Then again, one case doesn't necessarily prove there aren't other cases in which extreme unhappiness and assisted suicide are the only options.

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Mainstream bioethics doesn't seem to have much interest in it, either. (yeah, I know, them's fighting words)

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No, I'd agree with you there. Mainstream bioethics has a pretty shoddy history. But there's a reason why those that disagree with the party line aren't heard from as often. I'd just hate to see them tarred with the same brush, and -- when you refer to the "mainstream" as opposed to all -- you refrain from that nicely!
 

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Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
Not that I'm arguing with the starting post of this thread. It is good news. I just don't see a conflict between 'the right to die', the right to have control over what kind of care you recieve, and the right to know everything you need to know about your condition. I completely agree that Rivlin's death was unnecessary.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Congratulations, Stephen. That's great!


And on an only tangentially related note, it is very odd to keep seeing what looks-almost-like-my-name (since it shares the same three first letters, as very few names do) in sentences dealing with death and wanting to die.

[ October 06, 2004, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: rivka ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Yeah, Storm, but then all you have to do is request to have it removed. That's really all it takes now.

Unless you're talking about people who have had severe cognitive losses. Then "suicide" isn't really an option at all, since it relies on volition.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 

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Actually, if you're not capable of pulling out a G-tube, you can't stop eating and drinking, either.

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Yeah, Storm, but then all you have to do is request to have it removed. That's really all it takes now.

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There is a larger point that I was working towards, but I can't really get my thoughts together.

I am happy that your cause is advancing.

[ October 06, 2004, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: Storm Saxon ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

quote:

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No, I'd agree with you there. Mainstream bioethics has a pretty shoddy history. But there's a reason why those that disagree with the party line aren't heard from as often. I'd just hate to see them tarred with the same brush, and -- when you refer to the "mainstream" as opposed to all -- you refrain from that nicely!

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Well, I'd be interested in knowing who these people are and why you don't think they're heard from.

The reason I'd really love Pence to see this is that it goes farther than he himself was willing to go when he explored the issue. Even though he grappled with what the disability community had to say, he got detoured talking about "rescue" - whereas Brody comes to the realization that this isn't "rescue" - the community care isn't any more expensive than the nursing home and this should have been something offered all along.

And, keeping in with the "context" element, the metaphor I try to encourage people to use when talking about Singer is "ugly tip of the iceberg" so as to avoid overdemonizing him and also legitimize calling attention to him specifically.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

quote:

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There is a larger point that I was working towards, but I can't really get my thoughts together.

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This has a very familiar ring to it. Describes all too many of my days.

We'll still be here when the thoughts come together.

And thanks, btw.
 

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Posted by Sara Sasse (Member # 6804) on :
 
Stephen, when a newspaper wants a soundbite, or when a university wants to hold a debate, they don't call people who aren't big names. The big names are people like Art Caplan, who make a lot of money doing this sort of thing. Publishing, lectures, etc. And the more you publish and lecture, the more influence you have on what makes it into the journals and what the media says in its soundbites. [Not unexpectedly, work that challenges the stance of the big names is not well-supported.]

But I think people like Tom Koch from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, do better work. It is both more nuanced and more thorough, but that makes for bad soundbites. He also criticizes the big names in the field.

There are a lot of small people struggling to do good work who don't make fortunes off of bioethics. They are leaving a paper trail, though, and they are making slow but steady contributions. Definitely not the mainstream representatives, though.

In Koch's 2001 article in the Journal of Medical Ethics entitled "Disability and difference: balancing social and physical constructions," he gave a balanced analysis of the medical model of disability as versus the social construction model, and he stated the case for a non-medical model quite well (I think).

quote:

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In a broader frame, the physical disability/social difference debate reflects a growing dialogue about definitions of humanness and personhood. The medical model assumes (as do most bioethicists) that autonomy and self sufficiency are defining elements of the "normal" human condition. It is the standard against which the lives of those with limiting conditions are typically measured. People whose physical or cognitive makeups limit autonomy and self sufficiency are assumed to face "a limitation within the individual"[6,11] that prevents them from enjoying pleasures or undertaking tasks available to the average individual. Those lives are assumed to be less happy, their life quality therefore less full, and their continuation, as a consequence, less desirable.

Social difference theorists insist that a physically dependent or interdependent life is no less full and viable than one that is autonomous and independent. Differences that may exist are inherently trivial except to the extent they reflect social prejudice or indifference. More fundamentally, some argue the assumption of independence and self sufficiency as a norm is itself reflective of prejudice rather than reality.
...
An either/or paradigm in which one is normal or disabled is inadequate to conceptualise the diversity of ability within the greater population, and across the individual life course.
...
The traditional, physical definition of disability used in the clinical model typically refers to a necessarily limited, restricted state in which the subject cannot independently undertake specific tasks or actions. ... Here is the crux of the matter: does physical difference necessarily result in harm; does it necessarily diminish the resulting life?

Clearly there are limitations to the opportunities the average person enjoys. The deaf do not enjoy music; the blind cannot appreciate visual arts. A tetraplegic will never know the pleasure of the long distance runner, pounding along in the endorphin-induced runner's high for miles. The validity of the apparently obvious assumption that the person of difference "has a strong rational preference not to be in such condition" is, as I will show, unclear.[14] Nor is it obvious whether such differences—whatever the preference of the persons involved—are inherently "harmful".

Unlike other activists who wholly reject the medical, clinical model in favour of a purely social construction, I do not dispute the reality of physical difference. As a person with moderate sight impairments I cannot fly an airplane; cannot safely drive an automobile. My visual limits do not permit me to play baseball, hockey, tennis, etc. I am thus literally dis-abled in relation to those activities.
...
[But] The choices resulting from accommodations to my visual restrictions are so integral to the pattern of my life—so "embedded," to use Stephen G Post's phrase [16]—that I cannot imagine being without them. Were my partner currently pregnant and given the choice of a fetus with my genetic pattern or one that was "normal" I would likely choose the former. Like those in the deaf community who perceive their difference as so integral to their being as to be "necessary," mine has been not so much challenged as channelled by my physical reality. The life resulting from my modest differences more than compensates for the limits inherent in my physiology. To argue otherwise would be to deny the life I've lived.

While I have argued personally here, there is an evolving literature that suggests my experience is not uncommon. Many with genetically inherited conditions view the potential of genetic culling, for example, with mixed emotions. Raised within families—and sometimes communities—where their condition is common, the potential for its future elimination entails as well the end of a link critical to their associative world. This is true of both those with chronic non-progressive conditions such as colour blindness (achromatopia)17 and those with chronic-progressive diseases such as Huntington's. While some researchers have reported an increase risk of suicide among those testing positive for the Huntington's gene, a comprehensive study of the reaction to genetic testing by persons in Huntington's families revealed a sense of loss among some who tested negative for the mutation associated with Huntington's disease.18 For some, their lives had been built upon an expectation of the disease's onset and its absence required a new perspective outside that of the historical community in which they had matured.

More generally, social advocates critical of the medical model argue that many persons with physical differences describe unexpected areas of accommodation that they insist are more than compensatory.[19] Almost universally, these include an increased richness in interpersonal relations and an acceptance of physical dependence as an acceptable quality of human intercourse. This literature acknowledges the physical limits but finds social and interpersonal values in the resulting life. Thus what disability protagonists perceive as, in Harris's words, "inherently harmful", may not be for the subject him- or her-self inherently anything. It becomes a fact of one's history—an aspect of one's physical embeddedness—and accepted or rejected precisely as one may reject or accept any life change. From this perspective, Harris's definition of a disabling and thus necessarily harmful condition becomes suspect.

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It is both more nuanced and more thorough

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At the time of the Rivlin ruling, a few advocates for persons with disabilities complained about the decision ...

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A few? I'd be surprised if that wasn't a marked understatement. )
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

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A few? I'd be surprised if that wasn't a marked understatement.

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Sara, are G-tubes used on a long-term basis for non-comatose patients?

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Steve, when are you going to write a book accessible to the public about these issues?

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*awkward silence*

Sara - email received and reply sent.
 

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Posted by Danzig avoiding landmarks (Member # 6792) on :
 
A G-tube sounds like an improvement over (or enhancement to) the normal way of eating. Less time out of the day, and I am guessing you get exactly the nutrients you need. As long as I could still eat Thanksgiving dinner the normal way.

Stephen, how would you recommend this issue be raised on a college campus, or a geographically homogenous community in general?
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

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Stephen, how would you recommend this issue be raised on a college campus, or a geographically homogenous community in general?

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quote:

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EDIT: And she may have convinced me to try and get an article or a column in the campus paper to talk about stuff like this. I'm seriously considering it, and I'm terrified.

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Eaquae,

I agree with your friend - on her advice to you, that is. (Unfortunately, the pace of "changing hearts" for people like Singer is a lot faster than one at a time.)

You've obviously thought a lot about these issues and care about them deeply. And you express yourself well.

Can't speak for everyone, but I don't get terrified anymore - knotted up stomach, twitchy, surly, and anxious - but not terrified anymore.

More later... I really can't write about this stuff at night or I'll never get to sleep. And sleeping in to make up for it isn't an option.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

quote:

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An either/or paradigm in which one is normal or disabled is inadequate to conceptualise the diversity of ability within the greater population, and across the individual life course.

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This is great, and I think it represents the lived reality of most of the people I know. There are staunch social construction theorists out there, but I'm never absolutely sure if they hold the line out of sincerity or to define the outer edge of opposition to the medical model, which still dominates the view of disability in most arenas.

I've read a couple of Koch's op-eds -- they've been a breath of fresh air in the Canadian press on bioethics topics. I am sorry I am not familiar with more of his work.

More later...
 

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Posted by Sara Sasse (Member # 6804) on :
 


I hope you find some useful things. He is a favorite of mine.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 

quote:

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*awkward silence*

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quote:

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In hindsight, it has been very well documented that there was no medical need for Rivlin to be effectively incarcerated in a nursing home. If Rivlin had been given access to a reasonable amount of community resources, of the sort that other persons with disabilities were making use of at the time, he could have been moved out of the nursing home and probably could have had his own apartment. He could have been much more able to see friends, get outside a bit, and generally have a much more interesting and stimulating life. The reasons he gave for wanting to die were precisely how boring and meaningless life was for him.

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quote:

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OK, I just figured out what this might mean: you've actually written a book, and I've (unintentionally) implied it's not accessible to the public.

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Nope - for both me and Diane, "start a book" is something on the "to do" list that keeps falling to the bottom of the list...

Realistically, I know if just started plugging away at it, trying for even 100 words per day, I could do this. Unfortunately, the guy that sits down at the keyboard finds plenty of other urgent things to do instead.

If I avoid thinking about it, I avoid kicking myself for not doing it.

(It's a coping strategy, not necessarily a good one)
 

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Posted by Sara Sasse (Member # 6804) on :
 
I went looking, too, but A Cry For Help appears to be a murder mystery written in the UK. (?) Was that the one you found, too?

Although I did see mention of a "Stephen Drake" as a protagonist (clairvoyant newspaper reporter) in another mystery series. Hmmm ...
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

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Do you really think people shouldn't be allowed to refuse medical treatment?

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Nope. That kind of puts words in our mouths. The point is that Rivlin wasn't offered any alternatives. Rivlin's complaints were specifically focussed on his circumstances, rather than his disability. Those circumstances could have been changed. But his "advocates" worked on helping him die to the exclusion of all else.

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quote:

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Right, so the "advocates" did wrong by him. But the result of the court case seems to be correct -- nothing in the law should ever prevent him from choosing to end treatment.

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But the real point is that they all reinforced Rivlin's belief that death was the only way out of the things he said made life intolerable for him. Not to put to fine a point on it, but the legal arguments tended to focus on having the state allow this by focussing on the disability itself. The path that was forged was based on successfully arguing that the state's interest in protecting life is diminished in cases of severe disability.

Hey, look, it took Howard Brody over 15 years to come around.

What I can hope for here is that you can look at accounts of these cases in textbooks and wonder what important parts of the stories are being left out.

[ October 07, 2004, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 

quote:

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Betcha knew he was going to quote you in advance, didn't you, Stephen Drake?

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No, it was weird - he called me. Turns out he was a witness to the particular action and wanted to discuss it. He'd already written an article about it and was using it as a basis for a chapter in this book.

His interpretation of some of our goals is hampered by my reluctance to be totally forthcoming about our rationales behind specific strategies and tactics.

There are some things you just don't give out for free!

[ October 07, 2004, 01:32 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 

quote:

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But the real point is that they all reinforced Rivlin's belief that death was the only way out of the things he said made life intolerable for him. Not to put to fine a point on it, but the legal arguments tended to focus on having the state allow this by focussing on the disability itself. The path that was forged was based on successfully arguing that the state's interest in protecting life is diminished in cases of severe disability.

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quote:

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What I can hope for here is that you can look at accounts of these cases in textbooks and wonder what important parts of the stories are being left out.

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Labelling the shutting off of a ventilator as "treatment withdrawal" is accurate, but incomplete. Instead of acknowledging that what Rivlin did was both treatment refusal AND suicide, there's a neat legal fiction created.

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Szasz doesn't think the state should be giving anyone the right to take away people's freedom unless they're a clear danger to others. And he is pretty contemptuous of the "logic" used in the pro-euthanasia movement.

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These "case studies" are being presented as accurate and complete. They're not. They're messier. It's dishonest to edit out the details that don't match the message you want to drive home.

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I will definitely talk with Peter about these questions some time and see what he has to say for himself. Do you think he'd remember you personally? I know you two have debated each other a couple of times.

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Des,

I'd prefer you leave my name and Hatrack out of it. What I do here is informal discussion.

Singer does know who I am - I don't call him "Peter" - he attempted the first name basis at one point, realized I wasn't going to reciprocate, so he doesn't refer to me as "Steve" or "Stephen," either.

Singer heard a lot of what I said in January.

Our exchanges have consisted of a couple of email exchanges when he briefly came onto a spina bifida list to correct any misimpressions about him (if there were any, they weren't coming from me) and then left. Rude and presumptuous. This was shortly before he came to the U.S.

The next time was on a radio show. I'll have to dig, but it's still archived and listenable somewhere.

The third and last exchange was at a school here in Chicago.

Be patient, though. There should be an interesting article coming out fairly soon that has some stuff between me and Singer.

And, yeah, I call him dishonest again. I give examples.

Tonight, btw, there are probably some people in Vermont doing the same thing.

*shrug*

It's obvious that we're not going to get past your irrational belief that nondisabled people who want to commit suicide are mentally ill and some people who are old, ill or disabled are making very reasonable and rational choices. There are a lot of unquestioned assumptions holding that belief system up and it probably won't change much in a short time.
 

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Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 

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I'd prefer you leave my name and Hatrack out of it. What I do here is informal discussion.

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It's obvious that we're not going to get past your irrational belief that nondisabled people who want to commit suicide are mentally ill and some people who are old, ill or disabled are making very reasonable and rational choices.

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You're presuming a bit here. I do think there are (perhaps many) situations in which a non-disabled person can rationally desire to die. I also think it is quite possible for a disabled person to be depressed or otherwise mentally ill, and therefore incapable of making decisions. Probably this varies from person to person -- some people (like yourself, surely) are made of sterner stuff than others and are more able to bear extraordinary burdens.

But I have good evidence that people can and do rationally desire to die when they become terribly ill. I am the executor of my parents' living will. They've told me that if they are ever in a permanent vegetative state or the like, they want to die. People make this sort of choice all the time -- telling themselves and others that, were their quality of life to fall below a certain point, they would be glad to pass on. They make decisions like this at times when they are not depressed. The pain is not immediate, so it can't influence the decision. These choices can be rational.

They can also be irrational, so I see where slippery slope problems come into the equation. I can understand why you want the law to give life the benefit of the doubt. What I'm asking you to acknowledge is that life can, in rare cases, be a burden and that sometimes a respirating human body is not a human being. What we should do about this legally is a further question, but if we can't agree on the moral underpinnings that law should have, we can't even begin to debate the law.
 

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Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
 
By the way, I hope I've been able to make clear that, despite the fact that I defend some of Peter Singer's views here, I do have some very serious disagreements with him. He's obviously very radical. I can't tell you how much I disagree with his opinions on infanticide and animal rights. And when I do agree with him, I'm almost always motivated by different reasons -- personal liberty, rather than utilitarianism.

Obviously you also have a pretty low opinion of him as a person. I wish I could answer that adequately, but really I can't. It could very well be that he shows a different face to his scholarly colleagues than to the rest of the world. People have different sides to their personalities.
 

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Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
 
Or it could be that Steven hears what he is saying from a completely different viewpoint, as someone who wouldn't be alive if Singer's views were adopted as mainstream policy.

Here is an example....you are in an Ethics class and the professor begins talking about sexual morals. The conversation is cool, calm, detached, and impersonal.

Then he calls your mother a whore.
(not yours in particular... ...anyone's family, so to speak..)

The same standards apply to everyone, but one is distanced from your reality, so while it seems impartial and detached, it really isn't....

Because these differences affect real people, in real life situations.

It becomes personal....and what MAY have seemed logical when talking about people with no real identity to you suddenly affects you, or your family...well, then it matters more, because those people have a face and identity that wasn't being addressed before.

It matters, because it touches your life, where before it was merely an academic exercise.

If you were in Stevens place, I don't think it would matter how politely he said you should never have been allowed to live, it would still be a horrible thing for him to say.

Make any sense to you?

Kwea

[ October 08, 2004, 08:47 AM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
 

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Posted by Xaposert (Member # 1612) on :
 
Except if it's true, or at least logically follows from what we think is true, and if it is on a matter as important as this one, it SHOULD be said, regardless of whether people will feel personally angry at it. If people did not speak out when their reasoning might anger many on a personal level, there'd be many wrongful ideas that would have never been refuted - like racism to take a recent and extremely important example in American history. You might get mad if your professor's theory entails your mom being a whore, but you really shouldn't - or at least you shouldn't expect the professor to stop professing his theory, because to him it is true, and thus is something that needs to be shared.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
I don't think Kwea was saying views that might anger somebody shouldn't be spoken. I think he's saying that the couching of something in hypothetical, logical terms does not magically wipe away the implications that philosophy has on real people.

In other words, the message "You have no right to live" cannot be separated from "X people have no right to live" if you happen to be a member of group X, or care about whether group X lives.

To take it a step further, when Singer manipulates the specifics of real situations to fit his lovely hypotheticals (which I'm taking Steve's word on), he's attempting to further disguise the real-world consequences of his reccomended course of action.

Dagonee
 

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Posted by Xaposert (Member # 1612) on :
 
But by the same token, the practical effects from a certain line of reasoning on you individually do not negate the reasoning. Or, in other words, just because a conclusion says your mom is a whore or something you don't like does not mean that line of reasoning is false.

Kwea said Singer's statement would be a horrible thing to say to someone who it actually impacts. My point is that, although that person might recieve it as something horrible, that does not mean it necessarily IS horrible.
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
But Kwea is saying this to someone who disagrees with some of Singer's philosophies and thinks we can take the good without taking the bad.

Assuming the philosophies Destineer disagrees with are the same ones that impact an individual, Kwea's point was that the harm caused by those incorrect (from Destineer's perspective) philosophies is much greater than he thought.

Dagonee
 

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Posted by HenryW (Member # 6053) on :
 
Quite interesting read.

I find that several of the more persuasive posts here are taking a very practiced approach to rationalize a belief system. Nothing wrong with that, but I encourage all that do to be sure that is well stated in preface to empirical presentations.

As part of individualism, if capable, I will determine my own disposition and I expect my legally correct orders to be carried out - regardless of my reasons for my choices. I also leave those wishes and desires in writing. I have not been, nor will be, a long term, nonfunctioning burden to my family or society. With long term life prospects with a functioning brain and even rudimentary communication capabilities I cannot imagine the situation where I would not be considered a contibuting individual - I would not request my life be terminated regardless of physical disabilities.

However - dibilitating pain with no easing possible and dire near term possibilities - you bet, I believe I have the right to make that choice (regardless of the possibility of miracles). Brain dead or progressive vegetative state? - that is where my written instructions apply.

I had a hard time being sure with the writings, but I wanted to be clear that some of us are very much in favor of the individuals right to choose.
 

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Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
 
Stepping back from "your mother is a whore" analogies, I want to offer something a little closer to what I'm trying to get at.

(And probably annoy just about everyone in the process - albeit for different reasons.)

In another thread, I made mention of recent poll numbers that indicated that 40% of the American public believed Saddam Hussein had a direct role in 9/11. (It might be different now, an exasperated GWB had to admit during the first debate that he knew it was Al-Qaeda that attacked us on 9/11).

Where did those poll numbers come from? Well, it was pretty simple. Administration figures appeared time after time using "Saddam," "Al-Qaeda," and "9/11" in public statements - sometimes in the same sentence.

Never let it be said the American public can't take a hint.

How about building the case for Iraq? It's clear now that the administration had a conflicting array of information and consistently picked that information that was most suggestive that Iraq was a threat. We know now that this was not the case. That doesn't mean that maybe there wasn't a case to be made for invading Iraq, but the administration found it necessary to stack the deck in presenting the case to the public (and they may have done this with all sincerity). That worked, too. The public supported the invasion. As more complete information has come out, support has softened, especially with the feelings that people were misled.

So where am I going here? Whether it's Peter Singer or George Bush, I oppose building a case on public policy - especially involving life and death - dealing with incomplete, shaded or distorted information.

Interesting coincidence pointed out by Singer himself - he and Bush were born on the same day, same year. I see more similarities between the two in their way of making their cases than either one would admit to.

It's not just Singer, though. That would be grossly unfair. He really is just the tip of the iceberg. There's been a ton of money spent by "right to die" groups over the years using the very same methods. Advertising works.

Now, where's that "I'm annoying" thread?

[ October 08, 2004, 11:43 AM: Message edited by: sndrake ]
 

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