Porn The Vote

You have made some compelling points in responding to my original blog.  I recently read an article about Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Law.  Apparently, Barbara Wagner, an Oregon Grandmother, had her doctor’s prescription for a chemotherapy treatment turned down by her state medicaid provider, Oregon Health Plan, who instead, offered her the choice of assisted suicide!

Ms. Wagner’s response was, “I told them, I said, who do you think you are?  You know, to say that you’ll pay for my dying, but you won’t pay to possibly help me live longer?”  She recounted this in an interview with Portland television station KATU T.V. in July of 2008.  Wagner died later that fall.

If this is any indication, euthanasia and the right to die in an aging Baby Boomer population is not 25 years distant, but exists in the here and now.  If Ms. Wagner’s situation is an indicator, and I firmly believe it is, assisted suicide will become a eugenics method to reduce costs of end of life treatments for the elderly.  Death is cheaper than life.

Interestingly, since assisted suicide was legalized in Oregon, the states Medicaid health plan has reduced the number of treatments it it will cover, from 745 treatments in 1997, when assisted suicide became legal, to 503 treatments in January of 2008.  A dose of death seems to be the solution increasingly preffered in Oregon.

The increased use of eugenics will occur parallel to assisted suicide and euthanasia.  The elderly, the infirm, the mentally ill and undesireables will be targeted.  Currently we see increases of sex and race selective abortions.  Didn’t we condemn Margaret Sanger and the Nazi’s for these very same ideologies and practices?  The past it present, and the future is now.

What is life?  Visualize Rodin’s The Thinker.  Rene’ Descartes famously stated, “Cogito ergo sum.”  I think therefore I am.  The implication is that existence and self awareness are predicated on the ability to think, reason and to be self aware of ones own existence.  Should Artificial Intelligence ever be created that evolves to self awareness, and I believe it will, then what?  These moral and ethical questions posed are stupefying in their depth and complexity.

Humans define ourselves as possessions of souls.  What if a machine became fused with a soul?  Someday soon man will be required to answer these questions.  How will we respond?  Will our ethical IQ be able to match the challenge, or will we continue to act as petulant, spoiled children convinced we are gods?

Michael Wachter

mwachter2002@gmail.com

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Debates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.