choice raccoon...
vortexanomaly reblogged
tastefullyoffensive
You decide.
Source: wronghands1.com
Where can you choose to end your life?...
The importance of confronting mortality and the right to make autonomous decisions are modern mantras – both within medicine and wider society. The decriminalisation of suicide in England and Wales in 1961 is an early example that life choices may also include making a choice to end one's own life. Since then a number of jurisdictions have introduced legislation which provides assistance for those who choose to end their lives. Given the repeatedly unsuccessful attempts to introduce any such legislation in the UK, it is interesting to look to other regimes that have overcome challenges and hurdles to introduce assisted dying legislation. The number of these jurisdictions is still growing, albeit slowly – California is the most recent addition to the list: the state's End of Life Option Act will come into effect on June 9 2016. Terminology remains paramount in any legislative provision – and rightly so when it may be used to determine matters of life and death. While the words "euthanasia" and "assisted suicide" are often interchangeably used, there is an important distinction between the two when it comes to who is doing the killing. In euthanasia, the responsibility for overseeing the death rests with a person other than the one who wishes to end their life. In assisted suicide, the assistance may be provided by another, but it is the person who wishes to die who has the responsibility to bring about their own death. The term "assisted dying" is increasingly being incorporated into legislative proposals to mean assistance which is being provided to those who are terminally ill. For me, the phrase "right to die" is a misnomer. As human beings we are all mortal, which brings with it a certainty that we are all going to die. We don't need a "right" for this to happen – it is rather a matter of when rather than if. If it is a "right" that is being requested then it may more accurately be described as the right to exercise autonomy, or self-determination about choices in our lives – including the ending of that life. Recent high-profile, highly emotive cases – such as that of Dianne Pretty – in the UK courts appear to support this position.
Assisted-suicide clinic Dignitas, in the industry area of Pfaeffikon near Zurich. >
Where can you choose to die?
The Netherlands is perhaps the best-known place where a person can choose to end their life in this way. The country introduced guidelines following a court case in 1973 and enacted subsequent legislation in 2001. It was followed by Belgium in 2002 and Luxembourg in 2009. All three countries permit both euthanasia and assisted suicide. Belgium is often cited as having the most "liberal" physician-assisted suicide laws. Last year it extended the right to a physically healthy 24-year-old woman who was suffering from depression. Similarly, The Netherlands does not restrict euthanasia to those with terminal illnesses, but rather some clinics have allowed patients with "unbearable suffering" to die. This includes a man who had been diagnosed with borderline dementia and a woman who had incurable tinnitus. Switzerland has permitted assisted suicide since 1942 but not euthanasia. Unlike other jurisdictions, the law does not require any involvement from a medical practitioner nor does it require the recipient to be a Swiss national. The country is unique in this respect – and this latter aspect has led to many high-profile and poignant cases of individuals travelling from their home country to Switzerland, in a practice referred to as "suicide tourism". Though the Colombian Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that doctors should be allowed to end the lives of patients by euthanasia, it was not until 18 years later that formal guidelines were approved. The practice has faced strong opposition from the country's catholic church, however, which has threatened to close its hospitals in the country if the government forces its doctors to offer euthanasia. Right to die campaigner Brittany Maynard makes a passionate plea before her death by assisted suicide in 2015. In the United States, California has become the fifth State and most recent jurisdiction to enact legislation which will permit an individual, who must be terminally ill, to receive "assistance" to end their life. The four other US States: Oregon (1994), Washington (2008), Montana (2009) and Vermont (2014) have the terminally ill criteria in their death-with-dignity laws, although they have enacted the rules in various ways. The California law was signed by the governor, Jerry Brown, in the aftermath of high-profile campaigning by Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. In her last few months, she lobbied for the legalisation of the right to die, eventually moving to Oregon from her home in California to end her life. Legislation on physician-assisted suicide is expected to be introduced this month in Canada. The change in law follows a 2015 human rights-based Supreme Court decision, which overturned the ban on doctor-assisted suicide. Physician-assisted suicide has been legal in Quebec since 2014. However, a requirement that two doctors must assess a patient's suitability for medically assisted suicide has reportedly caused problems after physicians were reluctant to come forward.
Choosing the right
Even if we accept that what is being sought is a right to exercise choices concerning how we end our lives, it is worth noting that most legislation which has been enacted does not actually confer a personal right to seek assistance to die. It is arguably broader than that, creating a framework, where – subject to certain conditions – it is lawful for that help to be provided. For those countries and states which are still hesitant about introducing similar legislation, turning the focus away from death and instead focusing about choices in life could be a way forward. The distinction may be a fine one but it is fundamental – for it is only when we are alive that we can express what is important to us and make our wishes and values known. UK Supreme Court judge, Lord Hope, took a similar view in the case of Diane Pretty, noting that the way a person "chooses to pass the closing moments of her life is part of the act of living". [+]
celebrating the choice...
Kids! Your sister has one. That woman on the subway with the very big stroller blocking your way out of the train has one. So does that dude at the coffeeshop who looks like he'd definitely nurse that child strapped to his front if only given the chance. Everyone has a kid! Everyone, except you. And that's okay. At least, according to famous women who never had kids, it's okay, and hey, if you can't feel validated about your life choices by examining the lives of celebrities, then what are you even doing on the internet? Exactly. Maybe other people's children make you feel funny-bad, not funny-awesome. Maybe you tolerate your niece because she looks a little bit like you and she has nice hair and you like the fact that she makes your sister less of a lunatic. Maybe you look at other people's children as tiny nuisances dressed in little shoes and shorter-alls, grabbing subway poles with their sticky fingers and leaving everything they touch smelling faintly of applesauce and spoiled milk. Maybe when your parents look at you meaningfully across the table at Thanksgiving and ask you when you're going to give them a goddamn grandkid so they can manage their empty-nest syndrome effectively, you smile serenely and say, "I'm never having children. Sorry." Are you crying "It me!" in solidarity? Are you worried about what society will think of you if your womb lies empty and you just, you know, live your life as a person without thinking about bringing and supporting another life in this world? You're in decent company. Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey has a very successful career, a pleasant arrangement with Stedman and the best celebrity Instagram to date. She also never had kids because they would fuck with her career, which is the best reason not to have children, ever. She told The Hollywood Reporter in 2013 "If I had kids, my kids would hate me…They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would've probably been them." Sarah Silverman
Sarah Silverman understands the importance of having children when—and if—she's good and goddamn ready. "I want to have kids when there's nothing else I want more, and I can make them my world," she told the Daily Beast in 2013. Seems right to me. Margaret Cho "My fear of having children is that, frankly, I just don't want to love anyone that much," Cho said in Salon in 2013. "I don't know if I could stand that kind of commitment, or, if I am really honest, I don't think I could handle being that vulnerable to someone else." Seems like a fancier way of admitting that sometimes, we just need to take care of ourselves only, and have that be enough. Kim Cattrall
"I enjoy kids but not for long periods. I think they're adorable and funny and sweet, and then I have a headache," Cattrall said in 2008. Of course kids give Samantha a headache. They are, in fact, the physical embodiment of a headache. All checks out. Helen Mirren
She has no children because she doesn't need kids to feel fulfilled. She told British Vogue, "It was not my destiny, I kept thinking it would be, waiting for it to happen, but it never did, and I didn't care what people thought … It was only boring old men [who would ask me]. And whenever they went, 'What? No children? Well, you'd better get on with it, old girl,' I'd say 'No! F* off!' Jennifer Westfeldt
In 2012, Westfeldt told the New York Times Magazine , "I've thought about this a lot lately. I never thought I'd be this age and not have kids. But my life has also gone in a million ways I never anticipated … I kept feeling like I'd wake up with absolute clarity, and I haven't. And we have a pretty great life together. The chance that we'll regret it doesn't seem like a compelling enough reason to do it. I may wake up tomorrow with that lightning bolt, and I'll have to scramble to make it happen." Stevie Nicks
"It's like, Do you want to be an artist and a writer, or a wife and a lover? With kids, your focus changes. I don't want to go to PTA meetings." Same, Stevie. Same. Marisa Tomei
In a statement that aligns very closely with my worldview, Marisa Tomei told Manhattan Magazine in 2009, "I'm not that big a fan of marriage as an institution, and I don't know why women need to have children to be seen as complete human beings." Gloria Steinem Your mother's favorite feminist doesn't have kids. "I'm completely happy not having children. I mean, everybody does not have to live in the same way. And as somebody said, 'Everybody with a womb doesn't have to have a child any more than everybody with vocal cords has to be an opera singer," she said in 2011. Jennifer Aniston
Stop asking Jennifer Aniston if she's going to have children! Stop it. Just stop. "I just find it to be energy that is unnecessary and not really fair for those who may or may not [have children]," she added. "Who knows what the reason is, why people aren't having kids. There's a lot of reasons that could be, and maybe it's something that no one wants to discuss," she told People in 2014. "It's everyone's personal prerogative, that's all. Cameron Diaz
Please tattoo Cameron Diaz's entire answer on my fucking forehead and call it a day. "I like protecting people, but I was never drawn to being a mother. I have it much easier than any of them," she said in an interview with Esquire in 2014. "That's just what it is. Doesn't mean life isn't sometimes hard. I'm just what I am. I work on what I am. Right now, I think, things are good for me. I've done a lot. And I don't care anymore." [+]
capitalism offers choice and variety...
vortexanomaly reblogged
vhsdemon-deactivated20180429
capitalism creates choice and variety...
finally, some hope for a new generation...
vortexanomaly reblogged
capitalism offers more choice...
vortexanomaly reblogged
the illusion of choice...
satanists defend a woman's right to choose...
Satanists sue Missouri for religious exemption to antichoice law: “Religious liberty isn’t theirs alone”
The Satanic Temple, an unlikely and productive ally in the fight for reproductive justice, is following through on a promise to sue the state of Missouri for enforcing antiabortion legislation, which Satanists believe impedes their free exercise of religion. The temple claims that by refusing to grant one of its members, identified as Mary Doe, an exemption to its 72-hour abortion waiting period, the state placed an undue burden on the woman's religious beliefs in violation of Missouri's Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Writing for Orlando Weekly, Satanic Temple spokesperson Lucien Greaves announced on Friday that Satanists filed a petition for an injunction against Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and State Attorney General Chris Koster, after the exemption waiver Mary presented at Planned Parenthood of St. Louis (the state's only abortion clinic) was rejected:
Specifically at issue are state-mandated "informed consent" materials, medically irrelevant anti-abortion propaganda and a mandatory 72-hour (3 day) abortion waiting period. TST's legal argument leverages the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) — commonly popular among Christian conservatives who endorse it as essential to preserving the spiritual innocence of pious bakers who might otherwise be forced to bake cakes for Godless homosexuals — and the move is certain to provoke a firestorm of controversy and witticisms. [...]
We argue that the "informed consent" materials are an affront to our guiding principles of self-determination and personal autonomy (beliefs which hold that a woman should be free to make "decisions regarding her health based on the best scientific understanding of the world, even if the science does not comport with the religious or political beliefs of others"). As such, the 72-hour waiting period — itself a burden upon our religious belief in the freedom to make decisions "voluntarily, without coercion and in an informed manner" — is moot and without justification.
The argument is, as Greaves characterizes it, "nuanced" — and it's yet unclear how TST's claims will play out in court. In addition to requesting damages for Mary for being forced to comply with the state's waiting period and counseling requirements against her religious beliefs, the temple is also pushing for the abortion restrictions to be overturned completely. After all, if the group can prove enforcement of the law does violate Missouri's RFRA, something might have to give. It might just be that the state will have to start applying religious liberty protections more evenly.
"We are dedicated to seeing this case through, and we will fight — with every resource available to us — for bodily autonomy and personal sovereignty," Greaves said. "Suddenly gone are the days in which Religious Privilege seemed to exist to the benefit of a single creed. All at once, the all-too-numerous flagrant theocrats holding public office across the nation are made to sullenly realize that Religious Liberty isn't theirs alone. Hail Satan."