Dignity in Dying

A strongly worded piece in yesterday's DT about the awfulness of assisted dying (even for those that might want it). I have noticed strongly conservative pieces from Moore before, mostly including the same sort of highly coloured wording which discourages engagement, at least with me, the sort of wording which makes one doubt if one could manage any kind of dialog at all.

That aside, the logic of the argument, such as it is, seems to go as follows.

There are plenty of brave people about who put up with miserable illnesses and miserable deaths without moaning about it. And by the way, acceptance is far more conducive to health & happiness than rushing around trying to change things - with echoes here of the rather fatalistic & passive attitude to life and its torments of some Muslims (which I rather admire), although I suspect that Moore goes to one of our own churches. Perhaps he deliberately avoided the well known phrase 'Christian resignation', knowing full well that most of his readers would not be up for that one.

Far too many people have got so used to being able to micro-manage their lives that they now want to micro-manage their deaths. This being contrasted unfavourably with the aforementioned fatalistic & passive.

A pop along the way at the likes of Kurzweil for thinking that they can attain something like immortality. See reference 1.

Facilities for assisted dying might start to market themselves in a distasteful way. They might acquire expensively cultivated brand images. They might become fashion items.

Assisted dying might just become an option, an alternative to bunging a care home several hundred thousand pounds. While I see that as a life choice. If you would rather your dosh went on distressed cat care rather than distressed you care, that is a matter for you.

Assisted dying is a bit of a cop out. What about the people who have to do the assisting and the people who you leave behind?

So not complete twaddle, although I strongly disagree with his conclusions. And I still have no idea how I might engage with him in any useful way - so let's hope that the dignity in dying people can think of something. See reference 2.

PS: I associate to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. With the Bard's argument appearing mainly to be a concern that suicide might annoy the Deity, concerned that his creations should jolly run through to their appointed term, whatever the cost. I can see that as a medieval landlord - not so very much different from a nineteenth century slave owner - you might been keen to promote such a view lest your hard-pressed slaves just do themselves in. Which last was also a problem, I believe, on eighteenth and nineteenth century battle fields, places which were often more than bad enough to disturb the balance of the mind.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=kurzweil, discarding the present post.

Reference 2: http://www.dignityindying.org.uk/.