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From: "Trisha Cummings" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:  assisted suicide - time for more coffee!!
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 1999 10:49:40 -0400
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Betty, Please post to C-Palsy for me.

><< What do you think about assisted suicide ? >>

    I think when considering  issues like abortion, life support and
assisted suicide, it is critcal, to consider why someone is opting for this.
If someone is dying already and in massive pain - why do we want to prolong
the inevitable and make the person suffer? If a woman truly doesn't want a
child and wants an abortion - she will find a way to have one - remember
back alley abortions and coat hanger abortions and the women who died
becasue of this?  It is also important to realize one beliefs system has an
impact on this. Just becasue your belief says its wrong - this doesn't mean
another beliefs do. These are decisions people must make for themselves - we
should not decide what is correct for someone one.

        It is not respecting someone's life - when you decide how they
should live it or end it.

    The fear of death and what happens is something we have been grappling
with since we became sentient beings. One of the criteria to having a belief
become a Religion is that it has a version of an afterlife. How we view that
afterlife and how we get to it - has a powerful impact on how we live and
how we view our actions and our level of fear.

    Our current technology has out run our moral capicity. Simply because
one can do a thing does not mean one should. We can save people now - we
could not before. We literally playing God. But what are we saving them for
or from? Mnay times we are saving them becasue we can. Other times we are
saving them becasue we fear death and say life at all costs.

     I believe in life with dignity - I certainly do not want to be keep
alive because someone else has decided that for me. I would not keep my
child alive at all costs. I can feel this way becasue I have peace with
death - I have a near death experience and know what is going to happen.
Amber nearly drowned a few ago and when discussed it - her fear was not the
dying but the part would I be there to help her thru the tunnel - she said
scratch that - after she realized it meant I would have to either already be
dead or have died with her.

    About Pete Singer and his ilk. These people are scary. However, we
should not legislate based on fear or what might happen. We should legislate
so people may have a choice and there is not wholesale slaughter available
to a population or segment of the population. In giving people a choice - we
do not hand over control to another - we are giving it to them. Today we
have living wills - people can chose whether heroic life saving measures
should be applied to them. Why can we not do this for assissted suicide? By
making the decision while you are whole and healthy and can consider the
alternatives. We need to protect the segment of the  population that can
never ,ake this deicion for itself, by saying documents must made will lucid
and capaibly. This way we protect the young and those we deem not able to
make the decision ( MR- altho that's still playing God.) We can set this up
so the "Hitlers" of the world can't take over the issue. Deciding to outlaw
something is just as onesided as deciding who has a life worth living. Both
are extremes and disregard the middle ground. It's terribly easy to get on
one's high horse and make decisions and go off on a tangent - either
negative or positive, and miss the issue entirely. We have gone to the
extremes. Life at all costs, disregard individuals rights and proclaim
ourselves all knowing.

    Another thing not mentioned is the death process. People who are dying
go thru a throught process and disengage from life, they are ready to die
and have no fear. They should be allowed to go - they want to go. Who are we
to say they can't?! Who made us CEO of their life?

        About abortion. Giving someone a choice is not the same thing as
being pro-abortion. It is exactly what is says - giving people a choice.
They may chose and abortion and they may not. Only they know whether or not
they are ready for a child. Many a child is born unwanted and has a
miserable life and sometimes an early death due to abuse and neglect. Did we
do them a favor? Does living a wretched battered fearful short life save
them from anything? I was just such child. My mother didn't want and has no
qulams about saying she wished she had aborted me. Frankly, I wish she had
to. I might then have been born to someone who wanted me.  I would not wish
a life of abuse on anyone. To live your around being beaten and raped and
knowing you are not loved is a hell. It is a life you want walk away from. I
attemped suicide at 12 becasue I was so frightened of the furious battering
and the rape - I wanted out - even oblivion was perferable to what I had.
Obviously I failed!! After my near death experience 3 years after that - I
understood I had been returned for a reason. Recently, at a Pagan gathering
of women - we discussed abortion. Several women had had them and one was
feeling guilty. When one of the Crone's ( post menapausal women) said - she
felt - she could could not give this child a proper life life so she
returned the child to the Goddess for the child to be given to another. And
she was at peace with decision becasue she had made the best decision for
that child and its life. I understood this at a very early age.
Pagans believe in recycling/reincarnation. There is Pagan joke - on their
death bed - a Pagan says - Oh brother - not this again!!

    An intersting statistic is one I recently read in either Time or US
NEWS - states that had liberal abortions law states saw a 33% drop in crime
and states that had strict or didn't  allow abortion who had a 16% rise in
crime. We are raising kids in hell!!

    One facet of all issues is the one about being right. Many times we see
an alternate view as meaning we are wrong - rather than gaining the
understanding we all have different points from which to view life. Neither
needs to be right nor wrong. We argue so hard for something so we are not
wrong when we need to acknowledge and respect anothers opinions and
understand there is room for both. Right and wrong are personal decision we
make based on what we have learned, experienced and feel. I am amused when
people do it over chocolate and appalled when we do it over life.

    I will say after 46 years of life - most of which has been as someones
punching bag and an unwanted human - I am more than ready to leave. But
having been returned I also know it is not my choice. Not to mention I do
have my child - one of the connections I have to this life. I also think
since lots of people do commit suicide - it is a meant happening or they
would be returned. We have not completely taken the decision of life and
death out of the hands in which it rests - yet.

                                    Brightest Blessings
                                          Trisha