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VERY progressive!

I can't believe we have come so far! America, the land of the free!

Come on guys, don't like abortions? Don't get aborted. Don't like slavery? Don't buy a slave.

As reported on ITV News

"A mother has made legal history after she won a High Court case to end the life of her severely disabled 12-year-old daughter."


You can read the full article here
http://www.itv.com/news/2014-10-26/mother-wins-right-to-end-disabled-daughters-life/ (http://www.itv.com/news/2014-10-26/mother-wins-right-to-end-disabled-daughters-life/)

I am not sure how I feel about this one. While I believe life should be respected and protected, I also understand that some people will never recover to any decent quality of life, and additionally the medical system will bleed you dry until you are so far into debt you can't afford to live your own life any more. Doctors are capable of keeping people alive a lot longer than in the past, and they are often more willing to do this even if there is no quality of life for the patient, just because it is profitable for the doctors to string the patients life along with ventilators and IVs. This seems more like the right to be allowed to die to me.

Shouldn't the kid decide?

Most of the parts I agree with this. If kid suffers and there is no possibility to live a decent life, this hard choice should be open to choose. This is a very hard decision anyway.

I'd say this is more a victory for human rights than women's rights.  Still, good news.

I wish I could exercise my right to abort politicians  >:(

He may not be able to from the looks of it.

I don't think the child could decide anything.

And I don't see how this is a victory for women's rights, it's a victory for human rights in general.

The child must have been unable to decide anything. She was blind and unable to talk, walk, eat or drink - how would she be able to decide?  ??? 

Checkmate pro-choicers

Whaaat? Is she serious? How did she do it?

I'll tell you how she didn't do it

She didn't do it Old Testament style by ripping her up with a sword

How is this a victory for human rights? We are taking about a parent of a child deciding to end the life of a child whose life is already established.

At this point in the child's life there is no risk to the parent if the child's life is not ended. The child should be able to make this kind of decision on their own if it is found by the court they will never be able to life any kind of "happy" life that is without pain.

You know this wasn't in America, right?

I have no problem with this one very few people realize just how long we can sustain life unnaturally. Cant eat anymore we feed you through a tube. Sick to the point where you intestines cant absorb nutrients no problem we can feed you directly into you veins with TPN (liquid nutrients). Can't breath anymore no problem we will put you on a ventilator. Heart is shot we can put a mechanical LVAD (heart assist device in).

We can and will keep you going on and on while you family watches you gradually and progressively deteriorate. Eventually something will fail that we can't stop. We can not replace liver function yet. Also chronic infection may set in something that wont respond to antibiotics.

This poor mom has taken care of an extremely sick child for 12 years. A child that had no hope of ever growing into an healthy adult. A child that in any other time would have died naturally as an infant. Don't judge her unless you truly understand what she has been through.

It's so good that she waited twelve years to decide.

You're assuming the doctors weren't honest

I think a little of this is that we hold that life-saving measures prolong life in hopes that treatments can be developed, even if they're not immediately available. However, there are some medical situations where this is never a viable option, but the alternative (death) is always permanent and irreversible.

Not at all. I am sure her doctors were good people who worked hard to save the life of a very sick child.
I am not at all certain, however, that the mother had any idea what she was getting into when she consented to various invasive procedures to "save" her child's life when she was an infant.  

The problem is a cultural one. We as a society are unwilling to ever let nature take its course.
Medicine does not focus on the long term but rather the immediate problem.

Combine that with a false belief among the masses that doctors can cure anything and a false hope that maybe they will someday invent something that can reverse severe brain damage and you have a setup for tragedy.

however, the attitude of a mother ending the life of her child by abortion, is a mistake that must be corrected, ending the life of someone else in the religious law and state law are not allowed, there are conditions where it is allowed, if the child is a life-threatening mother conceived him, hopefully can be given the best ... ::)

Don't make me abort you

May the child's soul rest in peace.
It just makes me sad that she havent even enjoyed what life has to offer, but Im glad that her and her mom's suffering already came to an end. Will pray for them both.

The mother is not forced to take care of the child. She could easily give up her child to a foster family or put her up for adoption. While I do think that a person should have the right to be able to die with dignity, I don't think this is a decision that a parent should make for a child if the child has not given consent for the parent to make such a decision

The mother is the child's legal guardian. She is the one entrusted to make decision for the child.

Did you read the article? The child is blind, cannot speak or communicate, and in constant agony. No family is going to adopt this child. No way foster care is an option. A child like this needs round the clock 24 hour care. Essentially the choice is have a full time 24 hour caregiver ie mom stay home and dedicate the rest of her life to watching the child or put the child in a nursing home funded by the taxpayers and have nurses watch her in shifts until the child dies. It is disingenuous to pretend such a child could ever be adopted.

Note this is not a decision about letting a child die. This is a decision about stopping aggressive unnatural medical interventions (in this case forcing food down a tube into the stomach of a child who was and never will be capable of eating) and letting nature take its course.

The child did not choose her mother to be her "guardian" but this is something that was done via law. I would agree that adoption is very unlikely but is still something the mother can try if she does not wish to continue to case for her child. I do not see why you say that putting the child in foster care would not be an option. Foster care is always an option if the child does not have any family to care for them.

Agreed the child cannot choose anything and in this case will never be able to choose anything.
Foster parents make an average of $800-1000 dollars a month per child they watch. They often try to watch more then one so they can make more.

This child would require someone who has undergone extensive training on how to take care of her. Care of this child requires multiple and regular administration of tube feedings, care of the feeding tube, multiple daily diaper changes, daily showers and transfers form her bed to a wheelchair. Daily checks for skin breakdown on the buttocks and other pressure areas looking for pressure wounds.

She needs someone who will watch her and be there for her 24 hours a day. No foster parent is going to accept that for $800 a month. No responsible child protective service would put a child with this level of special needs into the foster care system where it is a guarantee she would not get properly cared for. She would need to be placed in a nursing home.

Then the child can be placed in a nursing home (if foster care is not something you would accept). The point is that the mother is not being forced to care for her daughter.

If the child is not able to make an informed decision to have her life ended then there is no reason why it should be, as long as she has not done anything wrong

EDIT: by 'anything wrong' I am anything that would be accepted by society as being deserving of the death penalty

If I was a child in this situation I would want my parents to let me die quickly and as painlessly as possible as an infant.

You seem to to be confusing withdrawing of unnatural and invasive medical therapies with execution.  This child is not having her life ended. The mother is refusing further invasive and unnatural medical care.


If the child is unable to say
"I am in pain please stop torturing me and let me die"
We should just keep the torture going forever huh?
Seems a bit harsh to me.

Personally I would rather rely on the parents who are the ones most likely to love and care for the child and choose what is in the best interest of the child.

What most of us here are implying is that if one cannot speak up for their rights, they must be terminated

Think of how proud the Fuhrer would be!

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks like this, religious people like to act as if people who are pro-choice are all heartless child killers but lets think about it for a second because if I were a child and had cognitive brain function and could see what was going on out in the real world I'd probably strangle myself to death with my own umbilical cord and yeah, it's hard not to see the religious pro-life lot as heartless when they think a terminally ill person who wants to die should be kept alive despite having no cure for them and then there's rape because of course it's all the woman's fault for getting raped in the first place right?

We had this recent thing in the UK where a terminally ill guy was trying to get it to be legal for him to die on his own and he was crying when the government said no. It amazes me how arrogant religious people can be when dictating how other people should live, I also consider it a form of torture to keep someone who's in a lot of pain artificially alive through medicine because that's exactly what's happening, it's all artificial, they aren't living on their own.

Oh and don't fucking pretend it isn't you guys subverting the law that's doing this, we all know exactly what you're up to.

I agree with Cube here. I am anti-death penalty, pro-lethal force in self defense, and have mixed feelings on abortion for various reasons beyond the child or the mothers rights, and under certain circumstances, like this one, I would have to say I am pro-euthanasia. Life should be protected, but its easy to fight for the right to life when someone else has to suffer for that to happen. I find this is a common theme with lots of so called progressive moments. They will fight tooth and nail to make sure SOMEONE ELSE "does the right thing" at no expense to themselves personally other than the effort of the condemnations hurled from the supposed moral high ground.

Do you believe pedophiles can be reformed?

Do you believe in the absolute accuracy of the justice system? Because I sure fucking don't.

No one does, but please answer my question

What kind of a question is that in the first place? Any criminal can be reformed, it's just a question of how much effort people are willing to put in, but frankly if religious people have their way executing for people for their sexual preferences to me is one step closer to executing people for homosexuality and then any other fetish people have a problem with will be next.

Are you comparing homosexuality to pedophilia?

I'm comparing the mentality people have towards both, they consider it 'abnormal' therefore the people exhibiting these 'symptoms' have to be exterminated which is basically what you're advocating. Nevermind the fact there have been cases and I can go find news articles for you on this where people have been charged for paedophilia for having sex with 17 year olds and there are even cases where you have two 15 year olds or so having sex at the same age.

So yeah, I have a fucking problem with anyone who thinks killing criminals who have given themselves up or captured is a good idea.

http://www.gpb.org/news/2010/09/20/woman-no-longer-a-sex-offender#

^ Yeah, executing these 'paedophiles' will be a really great idea won't it?

Wow, yeah, that's pretty sad stuff. But if both parties consent and are underage, they should not be persecuted

Welcome to my world :P lol but this is generally what I'm on about, people are so hateful and paranoid they're going to start prosecuting and killing people for a thought process.

You keep referencing "religious people" in your posts. How exactly is it religious people having their way? What country do you live in? Afganistan? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Those are a few countries that come to mind whose laws are dictated by religion (Islam). Here in the U.S. we have this thing called elections. Religious people and non-religious people alike are allowed to vote and place the people in the positions that actually are the ones who decide who gets executed and for what. They're called judges.

Using the phrase "religious people..." is a crude and biased generalization at best. I'm a religious person, and I hold no desire at all to see laws passed that would require people to be executed for their sexual preference. I could care less if someone is gay. It's not my place to judge.

Back on topic. I can understand the parents wanting to end their child's suffering. I have two problems here though. First, the title of the post says "Victory for women's rights." What does this have to do with women's rights? From reading the article is seems that the mother AND father both made the decision.
Second, could they not have found a more humane way to carry out the deed? I mean, removing the feeding and watering tubes and allowing someone in a coma to die is one thing. But the child was conscious and aware of what was going on. So having her die by dehydration must not have been a pleasant experience at all, I would imagine.

I agree with you on the term being crude and based on biased generalizations. But you can't deny that a large part of the republican party's support comes from religious folks who DO want to see laws passed to restrict behaviors they don't agree with. To pretend otherwise isn't being honest. While the term may be objectionable, I think this is the sentiment using that term was meant to evoke; it was just done in the shortest hand possible.

What the hell does this have to do with anything? You know they don't execute people for pedophilia right?

I don't know about that. I would have to see some facts supporting that claim. Otherwise it's just speculation. I won't disagree that a large part of Republicans are religious, but I just don't believe that it is safe to generalize that all religious people want laws passed to restrict things they don't support. And even if that were true, how is it any different than the Atheist groups who are trying to get laws passed to restrict things they don't like, such as having "In God We Trust" removed from everything and denying children the right/priviledge to say prayers in school. There are hypocracies on all sides.

I didn't say all religious people want to pass laws to restrict things they don't support. Though I did say that a large part of the republican base is made up of people like this. If you need evidence, see all the anti-gay marriage laws written in the southern "republican" states that the courts are finally overturning as unconstitutional. It's easiest to see it with gay marriage, so I won't bother with less easily-identifiable examples.

Fair enough.

But there are some criminals that can never be reformed

So? This still doesn't justify executions... this is a very poor argument.

What do you suggest should be the penalty for rapists and murderers? A $200 fine?

How about prison?

America already has a terrible prison problem!

Life in prison would be the solution here if you are against the death penalty.

Mixed feelings, it sounds like the child was suffering
Does that mean that someone else even their mother has the right to let them die
One should die of natural causes this is in a sense a murder but the intentions were pure, so on the line.
That said in this case it is ok with me I just hope it's not a slippery slope on legal precedents.

Who's gonna pay for that? Some of those bastards live up to their high nineties

If prisons weren't 70% filled with nonviolent drug offenders, funding wouldn't be an issue.

This is powerful. I think the figure is close to 58% but it could well be 70% and exceed to the mid nineties before the US wakes up and realizes, only then, it will be too late.

There are more black people locked up today than were slaves
Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/michelle-alexander-more-black-men-in-prison-slaves-1850_n_1007368.html)

It's pretty funny how the police won't touch armed violent crime in black neighborhoods but would absolutely perform blatant violations of the Fourth Amendment on minorities by stating the "probable cause" as "smelling marijuana". I mean, if they really cared about their safety, they could start with cleaning up DC.

Most people in prison are violent offenders and/or have been convicted of crimes in which the offender would likely commit a violent crime.

You should also note that it is near impossible to get life insurance on someone who is in prison because of the huge amount of risk the person will be killed in prison

Wrong.

48% of prisoners are non violent drug "offenders"
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1118 (http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=1118)

That leaves 52%

I'm sure there are more than 3% of "offenders" locked up for downloading unauthorized digital goods (software piracy)

Ending another life when it clearly did not endanger the woman's own, not to mention her own child.

You call this 'progress'?

It's more like dereliction of responsibility and wanting to exercise 'rights' without reprocussions. You have no more right to end your child's life then I have to end yours.

Your 'feelings' are irrelevant. I can easily justify based on my male 'feelings' how I am entitled to rape you as my fuck toy.


Deluded bitches and their lack of common sense sound like a bigger problem. Man or woman, no one respects those who cannot pull their own weight. Have you tried being more of a woman?

I have known plenty of powerful and strong women, the kind that commands the same respect as any grandfather or father when families are together in the household. None of them were are frivolous or mouthy like a little girl - in other words, like you.

Piracy is generally a a civil offense, not a criminal one so there are likely zero people in jail for piracy. Also those statistics fail to account for people who have committed violent crimes in the past or whose crimes are often associated with violence (but were not specifically convicted of doing something violent)

Then you need to seek psychotherapy


Google: Aaron Swartz

You're relying on government numbers? When has the government ever released an accurate number on anything?

You see no conflict of interest in the government releasing numbers relative to their own policies?

"Hey, Yeah! All that money we printed solved everything! Look at the 5.8% employment rate that we ended up with because of our policies. The economy is doing great now because of us! We're the saviors of the world!" - US Government


Really the number of non violent drug offenders is north of 60%.

Also, white people use marijuana just as much as the blacks do, but blacks are incarcerated at a nearly double rate

The drug war is a closeted war on people of color.

Just like the war on terror is an excuse to terrorize Middle Eastern children and strip us of our civil liberties (NDAA)

Actually its closer to 58%. If you count immigration violations that puts us at 68% of the prison population as nonviolent offenders.
hint: you were looking at jails (state) not prisons (federal)
http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp

That's not true. They just get caught twice as often as we do. Spark 'em if you got 'em, bitches!  8)

Ever wonder why?

It's because of police flagging black neighborhoods as "high crime" zones and patrolling them constantly

Ever wonder why?

It's because of police flagging black neighborhoods as "high crime" zones and patrolling them constantly
[/quote]

Well, obviously my attempt at making a joke to lighten the mood was unsuccessful.

There's probably a reason why some black neighborhoods are labelled as "high crime" zones. Probably because the ones labelled as such ARE "high crime" zones.

Well, obviously my attempt at making a joke to lighten the mood was unsuccessful.

There's probably a reason why some black neighborhoods are labelled as "high crime" zones. Probably because the ones labelled as such ARE "high crime" zones.
[/quote]


Circular reasoning