Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Non-Killing Society: abortion & euthanasia

Thank you very much Kim for picking up this issue. I & Tim also raised this euthanasia controversy. But our time is limited. I think everybody knows Dr.Kevorkian. Now he is free from the jail because of his physical illness. As I watched 60 minutes program (Death by Doctor), this controversy is not different from the ongoing heated debate in France.

As I can assume, euthanasia should not be publicly and legally permitted. Somehow, ill persons are incapacitated to cope themselves comparing as maturity of the adult who must be older than 18 years to confront with the law. However, in case of Dr. Kevorkian, he required the government should allow perform euthanasia legally and publicly, and Dr. should be provided the license to conduct euthanasia. In reality, many hospitals and Dr. have secretly conducted euthanasia. This is the main point of Dr.Kevorkian stressed that this practice should not be in a secret way. But many commentators called him fanatic.

In case of pro-life and pro-choice of abortion issue, I think it is still fanatic. Of course all things appear and disappear according their causes and effects in some reasons. With this changing continuity, we can only deal with it through wisdom, and try our best as much as possible to minimize the destruction. In some situation, relating health issue, we have to choose one "mother or child". So this situation is not complying with the idea of pro-life and pro-choice at all. I do believe that the balancing practice through our consciousness between both extreme ends (wrong and right, beginning and ending,..etc) should prevail true universal achievement for humanity civilization. For instance, nowadays we cannot find any countries that practice pure democratic, or pure communism. Regarding this, capitalism would a last better option for our modern world to develop humanity civilization. Social entrepreneurship and UN's Millennium Development Goal (MDG) program might be able to balance capitalistic extreme.

Peace!

Sophan
- Hide quoted text -

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 8:47 AM, Kim De Vidts <@hotmail.com> wrote:
Aloha everyone!

In the press in Western Europe this morning, I found this article to be of great value to our "nonkilling" discussion led so graciously by Tim and Sophan yesterday. If "nonkilling" does indeed include every means of "killing", then progressive countries like the Netherlands (quite a positive example in Futures Studies and the liberal concern for future generations) would oppose. Ending suffering being denied due to the "killing" argument would mean a regression in liberal societal practices (a severe limitation to one's liberal freedom!). Is it possible to realistically conduct this debate while not affecting issues like euthanasia? Or should they also be included in the nonkilling futures alternative?

Yours,
KIM




New Conflict Regarding Euthanasia Touches France
Source: Nieuwsblad, in Flemish, 28 February 2008.
A conflict concerning active aid to die to an incurably ill woman touches France. The 52-year-old former teacher from Dijon suffers from a malignant tumor in the nose and wishes nothing more than to "part peacefully", she declared to the media on Thursday. Her three adult children and family physician support that wish. The woman's face has been severely disfigured by the tumor. She is in heavy pain, has lost her ability to smell and taste and has shortly also lost her sight. It concerns a very rare cancer. In the past twenty years, only two hundred cases of the disease have been registered.
The woman turned to the media and called the French president Nicolas Sarkozy to legally permit active death aid. "I do not wish to go abroad to die with dignity, I want to be at home in my bed", she said. In Belgium, the Netherlands, and recently also Luxembourg, euthanasia is allowed.

Nieuw conflict over euthanasie beroert Frankrijk
Een conflict over actieve stervenshulp aan een ongeneeslijk zieke vrouw beroert Frankrijk. De 52-jarige voormalige lerares uit de buurt van Dijon leidt aan een kwaadaardige tumor in de neusholte en wil niets liever dan 'vreedzaam heengaan', zo verklaarde ze donderdag in de media. Haar drie volwassen kinderen en huisarts ondersteunen de wens.
Het gezicht van de vrouw is door de tumor zwaar misvormd. Ze lijdt hevige pijn, heeft haar reuk- en smaakzin verloren en kan sinds kort ook niet meer zien. Het gaat om een zeer zeldzame kanker. De laatste twintig jaar zijn wereldwijd maar tweehonderd gevallen van de ziekte geregistreerd.

De vrouw heeft zich tot de media gewend en de Franse president Nicolas Sarkozy opgeroepen actieve stervenshulp wettelijk toe te laten. 'Ik wil niet naar het buitenland gaan om waardig te sterven, ik wil thuis in mijn bed blijven', zo zei ze. In Belgiƫ, Nederland en sinds kort ook in Luxemburg is euthanasie wel toegestaan.
sdg (belga)






Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:24:41 -1000
From:
Subject: Re: Nonkilling...
To:
CC: pol673-l@hawaii.edu

Igor et al,

Thank you very much for your continuing to insert some thought of nonkilling society. We might have a great debate today. I & Tim thanks for your profound sharing.

Regarding to the abolition of death penalty, my assumption is that all human beings must be respected regardless of color, good or bad. Human beings by nature are tameable. So, politically correctness, we don't call jail or prison referring to a place detained peoples anymore; we have changed to call it "rehabilitation center".

In reality, I do hope we can build nonkilling society or nonkilling government because the social pressure by using the means of nonviolence is more effective than by using the means of violence. Modernity, many countries are successful in their international diplomacy through nonviolence, not violence, and incorporative, not confrontation.

Wish you all have a nice weekend

Peace!

Sophan

On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 10:29 PM, Igor Nikitin <@hawaii.edu> wrote:
My dubiety in respect to topic of discussion is the gap between
idealistic imagination about what our world should be and what it is in
reality. From the first article by Paige I was afraid to find some
suggestions on what to do with death penalty and, unfortunately, I did
it.

Why unfortunately? Because, it's the first thing that comes to mind
when we talk about nonkilling society. The idea is pretty nice, but, in
my opinion, it's, maybe, one of the last things we need to do working
our way towards nonkilling society. Just look at statistics in Paige's
article: only 1/5 of deaths is related to wars. It means that
functional problem of killing within institutions (which are not only
police and courts, but also schools, families and etc) that are
implemented to prevent killing is five times more acute than problem of
states' dependence on killing. Not solving this problem, we just
deceive ourselves when we think that we're doing something to get
certain features of nonkilling society by just abolishing death
penalty. It's the top of issue. But origin of problem hides in much
more ordinary things - education, life insurances, oblivion to death as
event because of certain trends in information politics, poverty and so
on. Of course, it's only my opinion, and I don't pretend on universal
true.



--
"I start with the promise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers" - Ralph Nader

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