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Post by macgolspie on Feb 1, 2006 15:55:34 GMT -5
what would an atheists veiw point be on euthanasia? ???
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Post by vertigo on Feb 1, 2006 16:53:18 GMT -5
I'm assuming euthanasia refers to where you ask or pay someone to kill you, consentual killing.
Atheists are a class of vastly different people. Some atheists are communists, socialists, capitalists, anarchists, etc, etc. What binds atheists is their lack of religion. It wouldn't be accurate to say there is an official atheistic viewpoint on euthanasia.
As an atheist, I can give you my viewpoint. People own their body while they are alive, but once they die they no longer own their body. I disagree that people should be legally able to specificy if their organs will be donated or not. The ownership of their dead body should either fall to the state or to the next of kin.
Similarly, that person who dies no longer owns the wealth and property they acquired while they lived. That money and property either belongs to the state or to the next of kin. Legally, inheritance is treated as a special type of income and is taxed accordingly. The idea behind this is that the person receiving the money hasn't worked for it, it comes to them via a parent dying, etc.
Inheritance taxes have the effect of freeing up property for people who are not on the ladder. If an inheritor will inherit property but then is saddled with taxes on that, they might decide to sell the property instead. In a sense, the property is recycled which is good for new buyers who are looking for property.
Basically, inheritance taxes right some of the negative aspects of capitalism, which is that property goes to the rich and tends to stay there. Lives are short enough that some inheritors live their lives off their inheritance, while other more deserving people go without.
So in my opinion, no-one should be allowed (for example) to pay for their bodies to be cryo-frozen after they die so they can be reanimated, etc. They don't own their body post-mortem. For that matter, I don't see organ harvesting as a bad thing, whereby organs from dead bodies are catalogued to save lives in the future.
However, a person certainly does own their body while they live and therefore they have the right to choose what to do with it. If they want to commit suicide, it is entirely up to them. If they want to sell their organs, as bad as it sounds, it should really be okay.
However, there are issues with them paying/asking someone to kill them. How can we trust someone who has killed someone and says "He/she asked me to"? Any murderor could say that. If a doctor has a signed contract that the person wanted to be killed, are we prepared to accept that contract? What if the person changes their mind?
In fact, imagine a trial where a person who signed such a contract takes the doctor to court because they don't want to die anymore. Should the contract be upheld? If a father goes to court after making a woman pregnant and argues he doesn't want the child, should we release him from all fatherly duties? We regard his engaging in sex as an implicit contract to look after the child. We uphold that contract after the fact. Should we uphold the death-contract?
Even though it seems that the death contract should be upheld, society probably won't accept that. Would you accept it? That's the question to be asked.
To avoid these difficult issues, one could simply disallow euthanasia, I think this is what will happen. The waters are too murky.
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Post by Dragon*of*Heaven on Feb 3, 2006 8:41:28 GMT -5
How are you looking at those who are more deserveing?
Interesting point vertigo but under your idea would cryo freezeing be ok if the person is still liveing? Also if the body dose belong to the next of kin wouldnt that alow for a possible post mordem cryo freezing. I mean think of it, we crack the coad of immortality or reaminmation in the fuiture you get reanimated along with your relitives. To all you Christians out there this idea is like heaven on earth.
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Post by vertigo on Feb 3, 2006 12:13:57 GMT -5
Well paying someone to guard you while you sleep certainly sounds reasonable. I think having one's body cryo-frozen would be like an extended sleep, like asking someone to watch your stuff while you take a nap.
The issue becomes clouded when we talk of people dying and being reanimated. Does a reanimated person count as the same person or a new person? This is close to cloning; do we regard a clone as the same person or new person?
If we regard clones as the same person, how do we treat identical twins? Identical twins are pretty much nature's clones, they have the same DNA. Since we treat twins as individuals, I would think we would treat a reanimated person as a separate individual.
Therefore, I suppose we would regard a person wanting to be reanimated in the future as donating his property to that future individual. We would consider that an unearned inheritance and tax it accordingly.
But what if the person doesn't strictly die? If their biorhythms are slowed down so that they can be awoken in the future, I think we would consider them to be the same person. However, in the case of twins, one egg and sperm create 2 people, it is a continuous process.
I'm not exactly sure what the answer is. These issues will need to be thought through; I haven't done that yet and it isn't a high priority for me.
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Post by vertigo on Feb 3, 2006 12:15:25 GMT -5
In the sense that they are willing to create value whereas the rich hermit creates no value.
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