TonioTimeDaily

Assisted suicide is sometimes called physician-assisted suicide (PAS). PAS means a doctor knowingly helps someone end their life. This person is likely experiencing persistent and unending suffering. They may have also received a terminally ill diagnosis. Their doctor will determine the most effective, painless method.

In many trusted source cases, doctors will provide people with a drug they can take to end their life. A lethal dose of opioids, for example, may be prescribed for this. In the end, it’s up to the person to decide whether they take the drug.

With euthanasia, a doctor is allowed to end the person’s life by painless means. For example, an injection of a lethal drug may be used.

When most people think of euthanasia, they think of a doctor directly ending someone’s life. This is known as active euthanasia. Purposely giving someone a lethal dose of a sedative is considered active euthanasia.

Passive euthanasia is sometimes described as withholding or limiting life-sustaining treatments so that a person passes more quickly. A doctor may also prescribe increasingly high doses of pain-killing medication. Overtime, the doses may become toxic.

This makes the distinction between passive euthanasia and palliative care blurry. Palliative care focuses on keeping people as comfortable as possible at the end of their life.

For example, a palliative care doctor might allow someone approaching death to stop taking a medication that causes unpleasant side effects. In other cases, they might allow someone to take a much higher dose of a pain medication to treat severe pain. This is often a standard part of good palliative care. Many don’t consider it euthanasia.

If someone makes a conscious decision to seek help with ending their life, it’s considered voluntary euthanasia. The person must give their full consent and demonstrate that they fully understand what will happen.

Nonvoluntary euthanasia involves someone else making the decision to end someone’s life. A close family member usually makes the decision. This is generally done when someone is completely unconscious or permanently incapacitated. It usually involves passive euthanasia, such as withdrawing life support from someone who’s showing no signs of brain activity."

Abortion isn’t rare.

1-in-3 women in the United States will have had an abortion by the time she is 45.

This is an experience that a lot of people have had, and it’s far more common than many of us are willing to admit. Thanks to that big awful bubble of stigma, many of us just keep our stories locked up and hidden away in shame.

One of the worst lies we can tell about abortion is that no one is having them.

This only serves to make those who have had, or are considering, an abortion feel that much more alienated and alone. So let’s be honest about it.

If we need a slogan, why don’t we make it, “Keep Abortion Safe, Legal, and Accessible?”  Because that’s our biggest problem today.

With countless women needing abortions and not being able to have them due to legal, geographical, and financial barriers, the number of abortions in the US is, if anything, actually too low.

When there are women who can’t get an abortion because they live in one of the 87% of counties in America that does not have an abortion clinic, that number is too low.

When there are poor women all over the country who can’t get an abortion because the Hyde amendment prohibits Medicaid from helping women pay for abortions, that number is too low.

When are there are girls under 18 who can’t get abortions because of parental notification laws in their state, that number is too low.

When there are women who don’t get an abortion because of scare tactics through crisis pregnancy centers and mandatory counseling laws, that number is too low.

When there are women who don’t get an abortion because of harassment and violence outside of abortion clinics, that number is too low.

When there are women and girls who don’t get an abortion due to the intense cultural stigma and shame surrounding the medical procedure, that number is too low.

We don’t need to lower the number of abortions happening in a time when too many women who need an abortion cannot get one.

So let’s make accessibility the real focus, okay?"

"The advantages and disadvantages of stem cell research go beyond the ethics of this field. Although the proven benefits of stem cell research are somewhat limited according to current science, the future potential of these treatments continues to inspire hope for many. As the processes to develop adult stem cells into programmable cells, the ethical questions may begin to fade. Until then, each key point must be considered before a final conclusion can be reached."

Stem cell research takes two primary forms: adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Each cell line that is harvested offers the opportunity to develop new treatments that may help to stop a plethora of diseases that affect humanity. Cord blood treatments that involve stem cells have helped to treat more than 6,000 people and 60+ diseases and that is just the beginning of what this medical research may offer.

One of the primary advantages of stem cell research is the availability of cell lines and that they can be obtained ethically. Adult stem cells can be harvested from healthy individuals by accessing their bone marrow and other tissue sources. Embryonic stem cells can be obtained from cord blood taken after the umbilical cord has been removed.

As for disadvantages, one of the primary points of content against this type of research is how some embryonic stem cells are obtained. These cells require the destruction of an embryo when harvested, which to some is a direct decision to end a human life. No amount of medical research, it would be argued, should come at the expense of life itself, no matter the number of people who could be potentially treated from processes developed from the research.

There are additional advantages and disadvantages of stem cell research that must be considered."

Parkinson’s disease is one of many diseases like Alzheimer’s with an unknown cause. However, scientists can identify the cells and areas of the brain which the disease targets. Practitioners use stem cell treatment to re-grow Dopamine-producing nerve cells in patients with Parkinson’s. If a single well-defined type of cell is affected, Parkinson’s is likely treated by replacing unhealthy neurons with new ones.

There is a strong link between the level of dopamine in the brain and the onset of Parkinson’s disease, which is essentially a case of dying neurons in the substantia nigra part of the brain that subsequently results to loss of motor functions. In a few different studies which tried to assess the treatment potential of stem cells therapy against the said disease, an exciting finding was found—the stem cell treatment induces dopamine functions in the brain (Kim et al., 2002; Rodriguez-Gomez et al., 2007).

There are some medical doctors and scientists who already use stem cell treatment for Alzheimer’s disease and claim that the treatment is successful. Although there is still no approved and carefully regulated process for administering treatments, hospitals and clinics which receive the green light from the government’s health sector utilize stem cell treatment for patients with Alzheimer’s. Currently, researchers are still conducting clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease to find methods with consistent success in the future.

The backbone is a special part of the body in that it not only serves as a frame that enables us to perform motor functions in tandem with the body’s tissues, it also houses one of the body’s major nerve. The idea applies not just to humans, but to all vertebrates, in general. In an interesting study which made use of an animal subject with spinal cord injury saw that stem cells treatment has the potency to treat the condition (McDonald et al, 1999). A different study by Keirstad et al (2005) also supported the same claim.

During clinical trials, stem cells contribute to spinal cord regeneration by renewing the neurons that died because of the injury, reforming myelin and acting as a support column across the injury, protecting cells from damage by the release of growth factors and bonding with free radicals, and relaxing the inflammation from the injury."

"Abortion-seekers don’t hate children. Indeed, perhaps the most unexpected statistic in either Guttmacher or CDC’s data, to someone who is both pro-life and pro-autonomy, is that 59 percent of abortion seekers already have a child. The linchpin of the cultural argument against abortion is that its proponents hate children, or at least devalue them, and should be forced to love them. (Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance, take a bow). It’s false, and insulting. Give or take the moment when you discover the zillionth dirty diaper, people with children don’t hate them. Any parent knows this.

Another thing that parents of all incomes know is that children cost a fortune — for food, for babysitters, for doctors, you name it. And guess who doesn’t have it? A majority of abortion patients.

Do the math. If the extra help convinced 60 percent of the abortion-seekers who are already moms that they could handle one more mouth to feed, that would mean 300,000 fewer abortions a year across the US. That’s 1,000 times what Mississippi’s law alone would do.

5. Abortion-seekers skew very poor. It’s about the money. Congress bars federal funding of abortions, and only 16 states use state Medicaid money to pay for them. Yet 24 percent of abortions are covered by Medicaid, which isn’t available to single women who make more than $17,000 in my state (your state may vary), CDC says. What does that tell you?

Abortion patients are overwhelmingly poor. Guttmacher says 75 percent are either in poverty or living just above the poverty line. Did you think the 16 states with the overwhelming reliance on Medicaid are a fluke? That all the spoiled-brat abortion-seekers go to states like Mississippi so they can pay out of pocket? Come on. Patients in Alabama and Arkansas are poor, too. They simply find the money somewhere. Because the $500 for an abortion isn’t the issue. The issue is supporting an extra child."

"NBC News recently reported that 30% of Republicans vote on a single issue: abortion. They may disagree with their party on health care, education, tax policy and social safety nets (and many do). But they will hold their nose and cast a vote for Donald Trump on Nov. 3 because they believe he will get us closer to eradicating abortion in America. For them, it is a moral vote.

I can empathize. I used to be one of those single-issue voters, and for a long time it felt like the only moral choice. But, I have learned over time that focusing on the moral victory — making abortion illegal — does nothing to impact the frequency of abortions. If my true goal is a practical victory — making abortion unnecessary — I need to look at the policies and programs that result in an actual decrease in the number of abortions.

The data on this is pretty clear: The abortion rate in America decreases under Democratic presidents and policies, while the rate remains virtually stagnant under Republican administrations. In the first year of George W. Bush’s presidency, for example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 853,485 abortions among women ages 15 to 44. In 2008, the final year of the Bush administration, that number was 825,564 (a mere 3% decrease in eight years). Contrast that with the Obama administration: The abortion rate dropped by 24% between 2008 and 2016 — resulting in 200,000 fewer abortions every year.

The data clearly show that when you invest in programs that address the lack of education, limited access to health care and economic uncertainty that contribute to increased rates of unplanned and unwanted pregnancy, you are much more likely to decrease the number of abortions. It’s the difference between a victory in principle and a victory in fact.

Investments in health care, paid family leave and child care equip pregnant women with the support they need to carry and raise a child. Renewed focus on equal pay, comprehensive fertility and sex education for our young people and publicly funded access to family planning services all lead to fewer abortions. That, combined with renewed efforts to combat domestic violence, go much farther toward eradicating abortion in this country than merely appointing pro-life judges.

If your true goal is the practical victory, then your choice in this election is clear. Joe Biden is the only candidate whose policies have any hope of sunsetting abortion in America by virtue of rendering it unnecessary."

-Danielle Burmeister is a wife, mother, full-time marketer and life-long Iowan.

"We didn’t see a former president, who had just rallied the mob to attack — sitting in the private dining room off the Oval Office in the White House, watching it all on television and doing nothing for hours as police were assaulted, lives at risk, and the nation’s capital under siege.

We saw it with our own eyes.  Rioters menaced these halls, threatening the life of the Speaker of the House, literally erecting gallows to hang the Vice President of the United States of America.

The only difference: The former President didn’t lose those races; he just lost the one that was his own.

To me, the true patriots were the more than 150 [million] Americans who peacefully expressed their vote at the ballot box, the election workers who protected the integrity of the vote, and the heroes who defended this Capitol.

Side note: Religion is vague about "Thou shalt not kill" hence the right to life and right to die arguments.

"Gaming with Charlie

2 May, 2020

In my opinion, life in prison is way worse than death penalty. If one of my family members were to be killed, I would want the murderer to suffer in prison for the rest of their lives, rather than have their suffering ended painlessly. They deserve to live the rest of their lives in regret and longing for freedom, but being denied freedom.

arandomhuman

26 March, 2020

No,  the death penalty should not be allowed. Even if they only save it for the most gruesome crimes and murders, it is not correct 100% of the time. Innocent people get their lives taken, get killed for something that they didn’t even do. This is not acceptable in a society.

5. Victims’ Families

Whether the death penalty can bring about some sort of closure or solace to the victims’ families after a horrible, life-changing experience has long been debated and used by both proponents and opponents of the death penalty.

PRO

Proponents who argue that the death penalty is needed to bring about closure and solace to victims’ families argue that the finality of the death penalty is needed for families to move on and not live in fear of the criminal getting out of prison.

CON

Opponents who argue that the death penalty is needed to bring about closure and solace to victims’ families argue that retributive “justice” does not bring closure for anyone and that the death penalty can take years of media-friendly appeals to enact.

7. Innocence

Reports indicate over 150 innocent people have been found not-guilty and exonerated since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973.

PRO

Proponents of abolishing the death penalty because innocent people may be executed argue that humans are fallible and the justice system is flawed, putting more Black and brown people on death row than are guilty of capital crimes, and that we cannot risk executing one innocent person just to carry about retributive “justice.”

CON

Opponents of abolishing the death penalty because innocent people may be executed argue that the fact that death row inmates have been exonerated proves that the checks and balances to prevent innocent people from being executed are in place and working well, almost eliminating the chance that an innocent person will be executed."

I adore these perspectives of Jesus:

"Did Jesus express views about government?  The Politics of Jesus, a book by Dr. Obery Hendricks says yes:  Jesus wanted to alleviate “systematic causes” of suffering.  He wanted to change the power structures to benefit the most vulnerable in society, the ones “whose welfare concerned Jesus the most.”

Hendricks points to events in Jesus’s life as evidence that Jesus was both a political revolutionary and a spiritual revolutionary, including these three:

1.    While at the Temple in Galilee, Jesus unrolled a scroll of scripture written by the prophet Isaiah and “found the place where it is written:  ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,  because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners …, to set the oppressed free ….'”  Jesus then told those present that “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Hendricks explains that the word translated above as “poor” is ptochois in the Greek original, a word indicating “a collective or class identity”–thus, Jesus wanted to deliver good news to what some might call the “lower class” or the people who are poor.

2.   Jesus said to pray, “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  …”

In his prayer, Jesus asks God to replace government on Earth with the doing of God’s will on Earth, per Hendricks.

3.     Jesus taught that “Blessed are the peacemakers.”  It is the peacemakers that will be “called the children of God.”

The New Living Translation expresses this teaching as “God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.”

Jesus Said Something

One could argue that these events—delivering the “good news to the poor,” etc.—are only spiritual references.  Jesus is just proclaiming the good news (to the poor and everyone) that God’s grace is available through Jesus, for example.  One could also disagree with Hendrick’s interpretation.

Probably recognizing such a debate, Hendricks begins the wrap-up of his introduction with a reminder about Jesus.

Jesus said something:  “… I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, … I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’”

They will ask “‘Lord, when did we see you hungry … or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’  He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’”

When Jesus said this, was he referring only to those we see nearby and who are like us, or was he also referring to those we see across our nation and around the world via internet video, television, and the newspaper?  Did he mean that we should do such things–like feed the hungry, invite in the stranger, and care for the sick and the incarcerated–in our individual capacity only or also by using our power as a voter and advocate?

Lord, when did I see you hungry or sick or incarcerated or in need of being invited in?

Oh, that was you in the news?  I didn’t recognize you.

You should have said something."