(November 14, 2013 at 5:57 am)missluckie26 Wrote: You can, yes. But does that mean you should?I have no problem letting each person determine this for himself, as long as he is in his right mind. I don't think I've ever come across a person who, being of sound mind/body, elected to die. We seem mentally geared for survival, and my impression is that even people who are terminal are willing to live their lives to the very end, with few exceptions (usually people who are in terrible pain or unable to do much else than lie motionless in a bed).
A few years ago I spent about five days in the hospital after a fainting spell that resulted in a broken wrist (the concern was over my heart, not the wrist). I shared a room with an elderly man who seemed incapable of anything more than moaning and complaining when he was being handled by hospital staff, whom he fought at every turn with what little strength he possessed. Aside from that he'd lay absolutely still in his bed and metronomically rasp each breath in a low whisper. Aside from the staff I did not see any visitors (my stay was too short to make anything of this, though).
He struck me as someone whose primary agony was that he was still alive. Literally the only physical and vocal effort I ever saw him make was when he was battling with the hospital staff; specifically, he seemed determined to make their jobs tougher. I felt bad for him. Perhaps my impression was wrong and he was clinging to life with all he had? I don't know. I do know that if he were to express his desire to end his life he would have been denied. I don't think he would have wanted to explain if he should or should not die, or whether wanting to die somehow devalued his life or existence.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould