Hmmmm. Not at all commenting upon nor trivializing any of your personal trials
or tragedies concerning your deceased mom and your disabled son. But the idea
which you are railing against --making life and death decisions about the
elderly based upon the fact that they haved already lived a long and productive
life figures into the answer of a conundrum that someone once posed to me: The
secnario is that you and two family members were in an accident at sea, a
capsized boat for example. Your elderly parent and young child (say your
septuagenarian dad and your toddler daughter so that you don't personalize this
too much) were both in danger of drowning. You as a proficient swimmer had the
strength and ability to save one of them -- but only one. Which one would you
save? And why? This was posed as a hypothetical question to people in a logic
seminar to see what the basis of their decision would be.
Carole McDonnell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This is what MMoore said:
"There's no requirement to sue after all. Why should that have been
his family's automatic reaction? Especially for a man who was dying
after a long productive life?
For all I know, they did consult a lawyer; but personally I don't
care for the automatic response that says 'you made a mistake. I'm
going to sue you.'"
I was focusing on the "especially for a man who was dying after a
long productive life."
Perhaps I read it wrong. Basically, I'm still getting over being
forced to pull the plug on my mother two years ago when everyone was
saying I should sign the DNR because she had lived a long productive
life. Mama was a nice little old lady who was 71 but I would've
liked to have her for another 20 years and I was very resentful of
some outsiders telling me not to give her a chance to live and using
the old "well she's lived a long productive life" so perhaps we
shouldn't rage so much against the dying of the light...and those who
had helped put that light out.
In addition, because I have a multiply disabled son and people are
always telling me that I should put him away in a home and that I
shouldn't hope for a miraculous recovery because his life is good
enough as it is, I just have an axe to grid about people judging how
long or how well they think someone else's life is.
If Isaac had said, "I won't sue because I have had a long productive
life," then I'd be cool with it. It would've been Isaac's opinion of
his own life. But when someone A says that someone B can not fight
for his life, or fight against those who are taking his life, then I
get pissed at it. We as a culture are always thinking we can judge
other folks' lives...and we're always shoulding on people. What if
Isaac had said, "I am not happy to be dying," would we be pissed that
he didn't accept his death? It seems that some of us would be.
Because we're all-knowing and we have it like that. But alas, I'm not
wise about how other folks should react to their own lives. And I
don't use the "after all, they lived a good productive life" to knock
people into grave or into submission to the evils of life.
PErhaps he should've sued. Perhaps he would've won. Then that old
bugaboo "a long productive life" wouldn't be such an easy excuse to
shuffle the old so easily into their graves.
-C
PS: I like you Nora but I've got to say I think you're trying to
misunderstand what I said. Or maybe I'm not being clear. <-- this
last part included as a kind of etiquette but not something I really
believe, BTW.
Carole McDonnell
Wind Follower April 2007 Juno Books
alternate email: carole.mcdonnell (at) gmail (dot)com
www.geocities.com/scifiwritir/OreoBlues.html
--- In SciFiNoir_Lit@yahoogroups.com, "Nora" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I didn't get the impression he was saying that. It seemed he was
suggesting
> that Asimov *could* have been content with his death, that's all.
>
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