An American dilemma facing the nation once again has come to the forefront of the medical community in Maryland’s petition to allow doctor assisted suicide, will Maryland become the 6th state of the union to allow such a practice?
In the article “Maryland house committee to hear testimony for End of Life Options” by Ovetta Wiggins in the Washington post on February 9th we can see an excellent example of the Value-conflict’s moral typology. Maryland tried to pass the bill last year under the name The Death with Dignity Act which failed to pass. This year the Death with Dignity Act was renamed The End of Life Options bill as well as the addition of some new conditions to the bill to alleviate some concerns of the states law makers. The newly added conditions are as follows,
1. There would be a private consultation between the patient and their doctor to insure that doctor assisted suicide option is truly what the patients wants of their own free will (i.e. outside influences that could have affected the patients medical choices)
2. The state of Maryland would have to set up a statewide database to record and track the number of patient doctor assisted suicide’s preformed in Maryland.
3. The patient must have 6 or less months to live and be physically capable of taking the doctor prescribed medication.
At the forefront of Maryland’s doctor assisted suicide is the concern pertaining to the intellectually/developmental disabled citizens living in Maryland. If Maryland effectively passes then the mentally disabled citizens of Maryland would have access as well to doctor assisted suicide but the troubling question is could/can a mentally disabled patient able to make such a serious medical decision? As of now the mentally disabled community of Maryland along with the Catholic Church stand in stern opposition to the End of Life Options Bill. The mentally disabled community sites a previous history of mentally disabled people having access to proper medical care due to their perceived lesser value in society as its chief reason for its objection.
A great deal of controversy arises from the simple wording, instead of calling it assisted suicide it should be referred to as doctor assisted Euthanasia.The reason for this is to combat the negative stigma surrounding the word suicide. The religious would tell you suicide is a damnable sin, law enforcement will tell you suicide is illegal and the public as a whole tells you growing up as well as an adult that suicide is just plain wrong and should be looked down upon. The crux of the doctor assisted suicide debate lies in the use and definition of the word suicide. That is to say for the average person suicide is a permanent solution for a temporary problem like drug addiction or bi polar depression which can be treated with rehab, medications and therapy.
But when one talks about doctor assisted suicide its an entirely different affair. A patient who is diagnosed with a terminal disease (example being Aids,MS or Cancer Etc.) its effectively a death sentence, the afflicted patient has absolutely no chance of recovering from said disease. Not only that but with 6 or less months to live its safe to say the patient has already suffered immensely physically,emotionally and mentally already.
The question at hand that we must ask ourselves is if the personal values/judgements of the majority should deny individuals the right to end their pain and suffering by choosing doctor assisted suicide.
Tag: Religion
God & Satan Enemies Of A Different Color
Preface: Most people know the story of God casting Satan from Heaven because Satan wanted to take control of Heaven.
- It all started when God got bored and created people to entertain him (the original reality t.v.) which pissed off more than a few Angels due to their jealousy of God’s infatuation with his new creations.
- Satan was not only an Angel he was the Angel of Light effectively he was God’s right hand man. Satan gathered a group of like minded angels bound together by their hate of humanity and God’s preferential treatment of people. Once Satan had assembled his crew they picked a fight with God by trash talking Humans, a fight that Satan lost.
- God banished Satan (along with his traitorous posse) from heaven.
- BUT GOD DID NOT BANISH SATAN TO HELL. God decided if Satan hated man more than anything then Satan’s punishment was to walk among man for eternity.
- From this point out God and Satan were deemed to be immortal enemies clashing in a constant war of conflict as each tries to win more souls than the other.
The Question: Now I have read the Bible and I like most have a few questions. The first and foremost I question the relationship between God and Satan as far as the traditional belief. As I stated earlier in #5 God and Satan are supposed to be the ultimate foes, yet in the Bible there seems to be a good bit of dialogue between God and Satan. This alone strikes me as odd considering their intense and eternal war of good versus evil after Satan got his ass evicted from his Heavenly home.
The best example in my mind of God and Satan’s rather unorthodox relationship lies in the story of Job. Here is a brief run down summation of the story of Job as told by me (Less Sober).
One day God and Satan (post battle for Heaven) were hanging out together which seems to me like a mighty oxymoron. Why would God and Satan hangout together if their such intense enemies that they actually went to war against one another?
While God and Satan are lallygagging about God starts to brag a good bit about his follower Job and how much Job loves God with undying loyalty. Satan decides to bust God’s balls a bit about this oh so holy and devoted Job guy. Satan makes a side comment to God that its totally obvious the only reason Job gives a shit about God is because Job has a sweet life. Job had a big house, a lot of land, a wife, tons of kids and a productive farm, BUT if Job didn’t have all the perks then he’d abandon God flat out.
Now this conversation seems to follow suit with the relationship described in the Bible between the two Deities, God says something positive and Satan then undermines it with negativity. HOLD ON MY FRIENDS This Is Where It Gets Really Weird.
God decides based on what Satan said to make a bet. YES IT WAS GOD who made the bet WITH SATAN. In some versions of this story some of the faithful claim Satan proposed the bet to God, but sadly no it was all God’s idea.
The bet is this: God allows open hunting season on Job enabling Satan to do whatever horribly wicked shit he could think of to torment Job. If Job remains loyal to God in spite of all the suffering Satan rains down upon him God wins, but if Job succumbs to Satan’s vile endeavorers then simply Satan wins.
Satan then proceeds to run shop on Job. Satan kills all of Jobs crops, kills all of his animals, all of Job’s servants, burns his house down, and kills all of Job’s sons and daughters while they ate together. Job remains standing God.
Round Two Satan struck Job with sores from head to toe. Here Job’s wife does something strange she tells Job to CURSE God and then die. Its the dying part that confuses me because why would she want her husband dead considering Satan killed the rest of the family at this point. Anyway I digress. Job for his credit did not curse God nor did he die, but he did at one point wonder why his God was allowing all this foul shit to happen to him, and at one point even asks God to let him die (assumedly to avoid further torture). Job through it all sticks by God and remains faithful by not sinning in cursing God.
God immediately declares himself the victor to Satan, and then shoots down to Earth to tell Job to shut up and stop asking questions for God works in mysterious ways.
In Summation allow me to state my opinion on the story/subject matter at hand. This is how I see it in all honesty. It appears to me that instead of being eternal enemies God and the Satan had a more personal relationship (as opposed to one ruling Heaven and the other Hell completely independent of one another). To me its more like two best friends who started a business together and the business started to flourish making all involved very happy. Then one friend makes an executive decision about staffing without consulting his friend and partner first. This leads to resentment, tension, stress and anxiety plaguing the friendship driving the two friends apart. Finally one of the friends has had enough and attempts a hostile takeover of the company only to fail, and thus the partnership dissolves spectacularly along with the friendship over an argument on how the company should be run. As the years pass the two friends begin to reconnect yet both are still pissed about their falling out as each blames the other for their failed friendship. Though God and Satan don’t ever reconcile they form a new love-hate relationship because though they had a shitty falling out their friendship out weighs the one vicious fight over difference of opinion.
Reality’s Power Point Reality
The point of having power is to exercise it in all of its forms, we are all God’s pawns here.