“We’re literally legislating what states of life are worth protecting, which is very, very similar to the abortion debate.”
What is death? In a post Roe world, right to life groups may have some new thoughts on this.
It should be clear, as we argued in the first part of this two-part post, that the word “suicide” is not always appropriate. In this second part of our post, we offer a candidate word.
The distress and pain that surrounds the suicide of a healthy person is different in kind and in degree from the distress and pain of the hastened death of a dying person. Vocabularies need to account for the difference between a killing and a death.
I hope others might be inspired to hold frank and open conversations about fundamental questions most of us will face. It would be so much less lonely for us all.
“We have a long way to go to educate the public about choices in dying, about defining ‘life’, and about making the end less agonizing for patients and their families.”
When a friend once confessed, “Jim, I don’t think I could do what you’re doing,” I immediately blurted, “I don’t think I could not do what I’m doing!”
An iconic philosopher rationalized suicide long before it became a contemporary academic concept.
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