Why do conservatives often support the right to smoke, but not euthanasia?

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by Diesel66

Botched killings look the same no matter who does them.

when a doctor wants to help someone end thier life. they would do it with a needle and some drugs. not a gun or a hatchet.

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

I just don't understand how people would think you're cruel if you shot your sick dog in the head with a shotgun instead of a vet giving it a shot, but this same cruelty is what many want to mandate humans to do to themselves.

[Diesel66]

Originally Posted by SpicyMcVoodoo

And who do you think is more likely to botch a killing? An MD or some guy with a gun?

off topic.


Do you want doctors deciding if your life is worthy enough ?
And should doctors throw away their Hippocratic oath and kill people ?
That is the issue

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

when a doctor wants to help someone end thier life. they would do it with a needle and some drugs. not a gun or a hatchet.

A lot of people use drugs to kill themselves and some of them end up in comas or they end up in the er instead of the icebox at the coroner.



Never understood that idea though. If a guy wants to kill himself, why are we spending a lot of money to bring him back. I understand talking them before hand, trying to get them to change their minds.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by Scrumtralecent

Really? I would have thought it was higher.

As a smoker I always ignored those numbers.

edit - ahh you said lung cancer. I was thinking just cancer. How many people die for smoking related cancer I wonder?

Lung cancer is the biggest and most prominent. I doubt mouth or esophagial cancer is very high.

[ballz2wallz]

Originally Posted by tbone

[*]There were nearly 5 million smoking deaths in the year 2000, with the majority -- roughly one third -- due to heart disease and stroke. Lung cancer killed 850,000 smokers, and 1 million more died of other lung diseases. [/list]

Out of how many smokers?

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

Originally Posted by Diesel66

Do you want doctors deciding if your life is worthy enough ?

That's not how I was envisioning euthaniasia, and that's not how countries like the Netherlands view it either. Perhaps I should've said "doctor assisted suicide." The decision is with the person, not the doctor.

Originally Posted by Diesel66

And should doctors throw away their Hippocratic oath and kill people ?

I don't consider assisted suicide for terminally ill, suffering patients throwing away the hippocratic oath. At the end of life, the doctor's role must switch from preserving life to preventing pain, as life is slipping away regardless.

Originally Posted by Diesel66

A lot of people use drugs to kill themselves and some of them end up in comas or they end up in the er instead of the icebox at the coroner.

Precisely why we should have doctor assisted suicide-- so the job gets done right.

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Lung cancer is the biggest and most prominent. I doubt mouth or esophagial cancer is very high.

I thought they have linked increased risk of other cancers(prostate, colin, stomoch, ect...) to smoking as well. I could be wrong though.

[Diesel66]

Originally Posted by SpicyMcVoodoo

That's not how I was envisioning euthaniasia, and that's not how countries like the Netherlands view it either. Perhaps I should've said "doctor assisted suicide." The decision is with the person, not the doctor.

But that is what exists in the Netherlands. The govt refuses to do anything about doctors who murder their patients.

Dutch Doctors Admit to Euthanizing Babies
Wesley J. Smith on Europe & Euthanasia on National Review Online

Doctors get a slap on the wrist if they murder their patients. Patients who want to live are killed off by their kids. A patient in UK sueing his hospital to keep them alive and the judge deciding against him.

I don't consider assisted suicide for terminally ill, suffering patients throwing away the hippocratic oath. At the end of life, the doctor's role must switch from preserving life to preventing pain, as life is slipping away regardless.



Precisely why we should have doctor assisted suicide-- so the job gets done right.

I can understand your viewpoint, but putting doctors in position where they decide to recommend death is a bad road to take. People attack the HMO's for always doing their best to get out of paying for services and cutting costs. Wouldnt they be encouraging doctors to get rid of the more expensive patients ? Add in socialist medicine and it gets even worse.

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

Originally Posted by Diesel66

But that is what exists in the Netherlands. The govt refuses to do anything about doctors who murder their patients.

Dutch Doctors Admit to Euthanizing Babies
Wesley J. Smith on Europe & Euthanasia on National Review Online

Doctors get a slap on the wrist if they murder their patients. Patients who want to live are killed off by their kids. A patient in UK sueing his hospital to keep them alive and the judge deciding against him.





I can understand your viewpoint, but putting doctors in position where they decide to recommend death is a bad road to take. People attack the HMO's for always doing their best to get out of paying for services and cutting costs. Wouldnt they be encouraging doctors to get rid of the more expensive patients ? Add in socialist medicine and it gets even worse.

I don't understand why you think physician assisted suicide necessarily entails giving doctors the power to decide when to end life. It doesn't. Legislators can write laws however they want, and if they only want to give a person of sound mind the option to have physician assisted suicide they can do that. If they want to totally strip doctors of the power to decide when to end life, they can do that too. The USA is not the Netherlands.

It seems your entire argument centers around doctors having too much power, which can easily be remedied by law.

[Diesel66]

Originally Posted by SpicyMcVoodoo

I don't understand why you think physician assisted suicide necessarily entails giving doctors the power to decide when to end life. It doesn't. Legislators can write laws however they want, and if they only want to give a person of sound mind the option to have physician assisted suicide they can do that. If they want to totally strip doctors of the power to decide when to end life, they can do that too. The USA is not the Netherlands.

It seems your entire argument centers around doctors having too much power, which can easily be remedied by law.

The law doesnt allow them to do that but they do it anyways. Life has little worth in the Netherlands because of the legislation.