Eric got to Ross Douthat ahead of me, but I’ll duplicate his effort anyway just because Douthat’s piece irritated me so intensely.
He says
the moral case for assisted suicide depends much more on our respect for people’s own desire to die than on our sympathy for their devastating medical conditions.
I don’t think he demonstrates that, and I don’t think it does – I think it depends on both. For one thing, if people don’t have devastating medical conditions, then they don’t need assistance with suicide. Part of what people fear is losing the physical ability to exit; that’s where the “assisted” comes in.
Fortunately, the revolution Kevorkian envisioned hasn’t yet succeeded. Despite decades of agitation, only three states allow some form of physician-assisted suicide. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous 1997 decision, declined to invent a constitutional right to die. There is no American equivalent of the kind of suicide clinics that have sprung up in Switzerland, providing painless poisons to a steady flow of people from around the globe.
That’s the bit that makes me so angry. That smug gloating pleasure in the knowledge that people who are suffering and desperate to die cannot do so. That smug certainty that he knows best and that what he thinks he knows gets to trump what other people want for themselves.
Douthat is, of course, a theist.
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17 responses to “Douthat’s victims”
“Douthat is, of course, a theist.”
Douthat is a sanctimonious little pissant. Waking up to that column really made my blood boil.
Well that too, but we don’t want to upset the Watchers, now do we.
What makes me so angry is certainly as you say, that this smug little bastard thinks he knows better for everyone else, but what really makes me angry is the fact that, as I read it, I said to myself, “This guy’s a catholic, but he’s not saying that out loud,” so I did a bit of checking, and, sure enough, there it is, he and his whole bloody family joined the catholic church. So he’s one of the pope’s minions, but instead of just coming out and saying, “It doesn’t matter what you say, I’d still be against it, because my church is,” he gives you all these fake arguments instead. But they’re just fake, because, if you proved that there is no slippery slope, he’d still not change his mind. That’s the insidiousness of the catholic church. It’s big, rich and politically powerful, and it’s doesn’t matter who gets hurt, the church is always right, because of god and natural law and reason and all the bullshit. I was going to do my think on William Lane Craig, but Douthat need putting down, so I decided Craig could wait. And then they say we should be kind and polite to religion. No bloody way!
Speaking of Catholics, all of these sort of sanctimonious screeds in favor of suffering always put me in mind of Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, who also advocated in favor of the suffering of others. When her own health began to fail, she did not grab a cot in one of her disease-ridden “missions,” but instead embraced the best medical treatments available including multiple heart surgeries and all the pain medication the Vatican’s money could buy. I’m sure Douthat idolizes that heartless monster… and will likely show just as much adherence to principle if and when he finds himself in lasting and unendurable pain.
The whole thing makes me sick, and the fact that Douthat pretends that he’s taking an ethical stance based on reason instead of just parroting the party line of his demented faith, is just icing on the cake.
douthat is only the evidence that the real feelings from such bastards are sadisme. The kick they get from suffering of others is also a proof that religion in his very heart has nothing to do with compassion but with the knowledge (they have it from the inquisition) that you torture long enough the victim collapse. And then you get that beautiful moment when his sins comes out of his mouth and the rotten gangsters can now play their hocus pocus they like so much : the confession. It’s pure sadisme not more not less.
In his mind (possibly) he thinks its all God’s work, and therefore those damn bleedin heart liberals are interfering. I don’t know for sure of course, because I stopped reading his piece after reading this line:
It’s the two words ‘seems’ that changes a factual sentence into something sinister and obscene. The idea that pain and suffering serves a purpose is truly disturbing if that is how Douthat thinks or what Catholicism preaches. The first ‘seems’ is deplorable, the second unforgiveable. I had to stop reading after that.
Ross Douthat, on numerous occasions, has seen fit to share his thoughts about humanity without any reference to human beings. This piece is especially shameful because there is, of course, a record on assisted suicide that belies his dire predictions. Acknowledging that, though, would force him to admit that his concerns are motivated by nothing humane.
Jesus Christ, man. How does such a thought even form?
Eric, yes, that too. Martin Sheen (as I think I’ve mentioned here before at some point) did the same thing when Washington state had an assisted suicide bill on the ballot – he appeared in an ad opposing it without ever sodding mentioning that he’s a Catholic. Oozing fake concern when it was obviously all about obeying Father Church.
Oh – sure enough – I did a post on the subject. It’s the third in the list at the end.
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2008/escape-of-course-you-cant-escape/
PS: the law passed, so yaboosucks.
Yes, Egbert (@ #6). I’d endorse that.
‘Seems’, but to who? To Douthat perhaps? If so, only for the instant it took him to see past and through it. No, it is to the people he is addressing, the poor ignorant sods who read his bilge. They are the ones who need the help of his rapier perception.
I don’t normally do this on B&W, in fact this is the first time ever. But before chundering in the dustbin after reading Douthat, I had time to put the following comment on Eric’s site:
Those are my theological thoughts for today.
Bah. I wrote about this nonsense the other day. All the slippery slope stuff, and the “concern” for ethics from these people is about one thing: the bullshit notion that there’s redemptive value in suffering. They prefer you suffer a whole lot, especially if you’re an atheist. The better to bring you to Jebus, my dear.
The smug is set to maximum in South Australia here, at the moment. Legislation is being proposed to further protect doctors from prosecution if they assist a suicide, but HOPE Australia has been out scaremongering the whole ‘death destination’ line, like it’ll change Tourism SA’s image of sandy beaches and arid lands into cloudy skies, smoke stacks and internment camps.
This is all simmering under the surface of course, the overt Godwining is left up to the Right to Life, and the various Catholic institutions.
The smug is pretty evenly distributed though.
Here’s a dumb question, or at least an uninformed one – how big is Catholicism in Australia? Is it major as in the US or minor as in Britain? Demographically, I mean. Here in the US it’s major demographically and I suppose as a result it’s becoming ever more major institutionally and politically. As we’ve noted before, the Supreme Court is mostly Catholic (shudder).
Ophelia,
Catholics are about 26% of the Australian population, but have punched well above their weight politically, thanks to the large numbers of people of Catholic Irish and Italian immigrant extraction.
The current Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott (popularly referred to as ‘The Mad Monk’) is an ex-seminarian and has form to provide the nation with loads of reactionary policy should he become PM. The next federal election is 2 years away, but he is currently leading in the polls.
Isanyone saying that if assisted dying is legal catholics will beforced to commit suicide? Ah, I didn’t thinkso. Personally I think if catholics, and especially numpties like ross douthat, want to suffer needlessly I say more power to them.I hope their suffering is extreme and prolonged. But no-one else should have to do so simply because the pope says so.
OTOH if douthat had actually had the experience of watching a loved one suffering, failing day by day, with no hope of improvement or even of stabilizing, losing dignity all the while maybe he’d change what he is pleased to think of as his mind.
I wouldn’t place a wager on that.