Well, this was something that always bothered me, but what exactly is the point of keeping severely mentally and physically handicaped indviduals alive? By this I mean that they are not capable of movement, indepedent thought, and caring for themselves.

They aren't a benefit to themselves, because they are stuck in an infantile state, and are in distress because they cannot move as freely as normal. It's a tragedy to a family to have something like this happen as well.

The only people that seem to be "benefiting" are the hospital systems that take care of them, milking the individual sometimes from birth to death for money.

Anyway, thoughts on this?

Ideally, I am in favour of it, lighten the load on society.
Realistically, it's repugnant to kill someone unable to decide or defend themselves.

It is a moral dilemma. Do you have the right to decide who lives or dies?

... It's not a dilemma at all. The basis of his argument is severely flawed - They are quite capable of independent thought. If we can't all agree that the killing of an innocent sentient being is wrong, *that's* a dillemma.

Let me say it another way. These people are miserable. How happy could they possibly be? I said Euthanize, not kill. I think it's doing them a favor, instead of them being in that situation all their lives, suffering in a ward.

wouldn't they die if you just left them alone? So, by helping them, you're deciding who lives and who dies. Playing God. See, it goes both ways. It's a tough call, but I'd have to say that realistically, it'd probably be best to just let them die, as terrible as it sounds. :/

HOWEVER, if they're just fine and dandy in their own mind, that'd be baaad. So...this is a question that can't really be answered.

Really, they are? How much have you dealt with such people, just for curiosity sakes?

.... Have you ever in your life met a mentally challenged person?? I'm asking that in all seriousness. Because you certainly don't sound like you have. They are not miserable by any stretch of the imagination. They're happier than most people specifically *because* of their limitations.

[Edit: Sorry, quoted the wrong person. SomethingAwful's quote buttons are on the bottom of each post, not the top]

Whoa, whoa. Time out there slug. I don't mean downs. I mean immboile, bed ridden individuals. Who can't express emotions, but just moan for attention when they need food or other needs.

Also, provide examples of your experience. That will help illustrate your point better.

.... List a condition. If you're talking about a complete vegetable with no brain activity other than basic motor functions, then I put it in the same category as coma victims, which I see as ethical euthanasia. However, I wouldn't consider that a form of mental handicap. That's brain-death.

I hate calling them vegetables, but yes, those people. That is pretty much it.

The reason I don't flat out call them brain dead is because they are still aware to some degree, unlike those in a coma.

I might as well say my own experience as well:

Research and volunteer work in Fairview hospital, that serves exclusively to mentally disabeled patients. Research was on self-injurious behavior displayed by some autistic indivduals.

Volunteer work in a local hospital, which recived patients here and there in the emergency room from various facilities such as Fairview.

Well, my friend's father recently had an extremely serious stroke. He was in a hospital bed, barely alive, the only thing he managed to mutter was "DNR" - do not ressucitate. He couldn't move, he made no other attempts at speech. He did not survive. Should he have been forced to live on?

I suppose it was his decision that he did not want to live, but should he have been "put out of his misery"?

I think if it was his decision, yes, he should be allowed to die. He obviously was aware enough to say DNR, so aye, let him go in peace.

Well there you have it. In your own words, 'If it was his decision'. Argument over by your own admission.

Huh? I don't think anyone who I was talking about could even know what DNR means. Two different cases, completely unapplicable.

The 'debate' comes when the individual wants to end their life, but is physically unable to do so.

The question is, if they could, would they commit suicide?

If the answer is yes, then there is no debate. They are willing to die, and to deprive them of their ultimate wish is cruel.

I suggest that people look up reginald crewe, he was unable to move anything but his jaw so he could talk due to motor neuron disease, he flew to zurich have euthanasi performed

Fairview... are you in Montreal?

Sort of like people who were born to never speak, never walk, live their lives being spoon fed and pushed around in a wheelchair, never working, or doing pretty much anything except consume resources and produce waste?

That is horrific.
A) in most of your examples a lot of you are deciding that these people want to die, for them. I mean they must want to die, they are just so "imperfect." You are defining how happy they must be for them.

B) Even if a person wanted to die, why? Since it's probably because his or her feelings of inadequacy, maybe society should try to help them with such feelings -that they shouldn't have to feel- by helping them, and not by looking down on them as "unfortunates."
A life is a life, no one gets to define it's worth.

There have been several programs around the world to systematically kill of the so-called "dead wieght" of society. One was in California, which became the model for Adolf Hitler's program to euthenize the mentally handicapped.

They may not be able to do all that you can, but that makes them no less of a human. A decent person would help out his or her fellow man, and try to make their life more happy, rather than destroy it as a "lost cause."

It's just so much easier to make the problem go away than fix it; to put it out of sight, and tell yourself there is nothing else to be done.

It really depends. In any case, you can't make someone else's decision for them, regardless of their physical or mental state. And even if they decide they want to die, who will euthanize them? It's not legal (at least, not in the US).

It's a slippery slope situation, in my opinion. If youm allowed it, what would come next?

People dying while they're still happy?

Way to not read the thread. He's talking about people who aren't even self-aware. They don't feel 'inadequate'. They do nothing but consume resources that could be put to better use elsewhere.

Yeah. Just people who are 'vegetables'.

Fairview is in Costa Mesa, California FYI.

This isn't hiding the 'problem' either. I can't see how they would be happy. They aren't people who can move or express themselves. It's cruel to keep them alive in that shape.

And please don't use any Hitler comparisons, it gets real irksome. I'm not talking about regular mentally handicapped individuals who can laugh or move, or show reaction to their outside world.

No, because you were never like them. You could never put yourself into their shoes. You cannot fathom that happiness could exist if you yourself were in an "inferior" state of being.

Just because you can't see how they could be happy doesn't mean that they aren't.

I didn't mean to take a position, I just wanted your opinion on the situation.

I have made all my close friends agree that if I ever, for some obscure reason become mentally handicapped, that they should just put a bullet in my head. I expect them to do it too.

Thats the next step away form morality. People with no one to tell them how to be moral, just make thier own morality. And this is a logical result. Oppression of the weak, life for the strong. Discusting.

Thank god for /ignore.

I have no idea what you just said.

I'm fairly certain that this is a tangent to his argument that atheists have no reason to retain a code of morality, and that euthanasia is a product of this lack of moral motivation.

I hope I'm wrong.

Sounds about right. He can't understand that atheists have morals because they feels things are right and wrong and not because some man holding a bible in front of them once a week tells them it's wrong. Damn us and our barbaric ways.

Obi, for the love of God, stop trying to relate everything to Christianity. Not only is the absence of being preached at conducive to independent thought (a good thing, in case you are wondering), but your prattle has no relevance to this conversation. I think I'm with Omicron on this one. One more asinine post from you and you'll be my first subject for /ignore.

First off, I never said inferior. And second off, we are both human. I'm putting myself in their place, and it seems like a personal hell. What can they be happy about? Please educate me on why we should force them to be alive.

You didn't say inferior, I did, mostly from a biological point of view.

What do you have to be happy about? I mean, really, they don't know any better, what they are is the best they've experienced.

And I never mentioned anything about letting anyone live. I don't like people. I just didn't like that you assume that they don't have what you have, ergo, they must be miserable.

I know this isn't what you mean, but that's like saying, I can't refute what you said so I'll ingore it.

Way to define the worth of another human being based upon what he or she can do for society.

Thank you.

U know, the biggest enemy the prolife movement has is ITSELF. If its not groups beating each other up, its individuals jumping boots and all into topics and using extreme language and analogys that inevitably (and understandably) alienate people who might in at least some cases be willing to listen to milder arguments.

The heart of this issue (imho) is human dignity, the rights and value of a person. This includes the people putting forward counter arguments, as much as people in comas, in utero etc. If we can't even listen to what people are actually saying, then we r showing no respect for them and can hardly complain if they don't listen to us in turn.

Now... that being said, this debate does seem somewhat muddied.

"Keeping alive" suggests people who would die, if nature was left to take its course. Allowing it to do so is not euthanasia, or suicide, nor immoral in the eys of, I would suggest, the majority of ethicists. On the contrary, to deliberately extend suffering for its own sake is of course morally questionable at best.

This does indeed suggest a 'vegetable', wherein we have the question of whether a 'person' remains.

On the other hand, 'vegetables' by definition don't suffer.

And people who can moan when they have needs, though undoubtedly suffering, are neither vegetables nor incapable of independant thought. If they are not being kept alive by extraordinary means (ie by machines, as opposed to simply supplying them with food and oxygen) then yes, to kill them off would be doing exactly that, and i for one think it would be wrong.

Hope i haven't made things worse, just trying to clarify the issue.