I'm 82. I've led a full life, all the normalities. No real physical problems, because I've thought ahead--no wrecks, no dead kids, no debt. My wife's taken care of. I eat right, don't drink. I'm not depressive, any more than life insists; an atheist despite a long search for any evidence.
So along comes Canada, and makes it possible to avoid an evil death, and Señor Brooks decides that Canada is wrong, on "liberal, intellectual grounds". Brooks can kiss my a$$.
I currently expect to be about where you are now in 20ish years (65). And yeah, under the current regime I'd need to take some extra-legal and "harder than they ought to be" steps to have the death I currently imagine I would like to have, assuming I am able choose (cognitively and physically, eff legally) when the time comes. I've done at least part of what I can to help my 90 year old mother be in the same position, per her request.
But, if/to the degree that the quoted statement that "in Canada an assisted death is already easier to procure than the services of a mental health professional" is accurate, I would want to see some apparently-missing safeguards regarding ensuring that someone is their "right" mind over an appropriate timeperiod (precommitments along the lines of advanced healthcare directives, which I think everyone should think about and have).
I'd be interested to see the details of how the system operates in the Netherlands.
Contra Brooks and Plato, Aristotle, etc., and following the Stoics, I think suicide is everyone's right (subject to mental capability). Including to "not be a burden", at least in a society where it was possible for people to speak openly about who does and does not perceive what as a burden.
Yes, human flourishing is inextricably linked to individual autonomy. The soul of libertarianism lies in recognition that liberty provides the social context for individual flourishing.
Autonomy allows us to adapt to social change, yes, but it doesn’t guarantee healing from wounds along the way...the balance has shifted away from obligation to depending on impersonal, transactional systems. If families were large and more connected, this would matter less.
I'm 82. I've led a full life, all the normalities. No real physical problems, because I've thought ahead--no wrecks, no dead kids, no debt. My wife's taken care of. I eat right, don't drink. I'm not depressive, any more than life insists; an atheist despite a long search for any evidence.
So along comes Canada, and makes it possible to avoid an evil death, and Señor Brooks decides that Canada is wrong, on "liberal, intellectual grounds". Brooks can kiss my a$$.
I currently expect to be about where you are now in 20ish years (65). And yeah, under the current regime I'd need to take some extra-legal and "harder than they ought to be" steps to have the death I currently imagine I would like to have, assuming I am able choose (cognitively and physically, eff legally) when the time comes. I've done at least part of what I can to help my 90 year old mother be in the same position, per her request.
But, if/to the degree that the quoted statement that "in Canada an assisted death is already easier to procure than the services of a mental health professional" is accurate, I would want to see some apparently-missing safeguards regarding ensuring that someone is their "right" mind over an appropriate timeperiod (precommitments along the lines of advanced healthcare directives, which I think everyone should think about and have).
I'd be interested to see the details of how the system operates in the Netherlands.
Contra Brooks and Plato, Aristotle, etc., and following the Stoics, I think suicide is everyone's right (subject to mental capability). Including to "not be a burden", at least in a society where it was possible for people to speak openly about who does and does not perceive what as a burden.
Yes, human flourishing is inextricably linked to individual autonomy. The soul of libertarianism lies in recognition that liberty provides the social context for individual flourishing.
Ah, yes: "A learning society." Still worth striving for.
Autonomy allows us to adapt to social change, yes, but it doesn’t guarantee healing from wounds along the way...the balance has shifted away from obligation to depending on impersonal, transactional systems. If families were large and more connected, this would matter less.