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Sir Terry Pratchett Succumbs To "the Embuggerance," Aged 66
New submitter sp1nl0ck writes Sir Terry Pratchett, the creator of Discworld, has died aged 66, following a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease. Sir Terry announced that he was suffering from The Embuggerance in an open letter to fans over seven years ago, and recently had to cancel a planned appearance at the International Discworld Convention last summer, and donated over £500K of his own money to research into the condition. He also spoke in favour of a euthanasia tribunal, the members of which would consider the case of each '...applicant...to ensure they are of sound and informed mind, firm in their purpose, suffering from a life-threatening and incurable disease and not under the influence of a third party'. Sadly, he didn't survive long enough to see such a tribunal — or indeed any kind of assistance for those suffering from an incurable condition who wish to end their own life — come into being. More at the BBC.
Funny, thought-provoking, and above all, a great story teller. If you like that sort of thing... side note, my username is a pratchett reference...
It does. But if he was interested in euthanasia tribunals he was probably considering it for himself. So maybe it's for the best.
True, but it does lead to a question: Why a "tribunal"? Unless you're too physically incapacitated to do it yourself, it's relatively easy to buy an oxygen mask and a bottle of compressed nitrogen... put it on, eat a couple of sleeping pills, fall asleep, never wake up. Relatively zero pain, and no mess... *shrug*
IMHO, and in spite of living somewhere where it's actually 100% legal to do it, Euthanasia as policy is at the top of a slippery slope... even though Oregon requires psychiatric approval before an individual does it, very few folks get one before offing themselves. Too many safeguards have been ignored or glossed over, because progress.
Maybe it's just easier to do what we've always done... leave it alone and if someone does it, they do it. Just make certain they didn't get any 'help' (as in, intentional homicide) to get it done.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It does. Suicide is a sin. That's why they would be against it.
Suicide is never directly named a sin in the Bible. In fact, King Saul committed suicide.
Theologically speaking, however, suicide is considered arrogating the right of God to determine when and how you will meet your end and putting oneself on a plane with God is considered at least one deadly sin (Pride).
Which is why we have good Christian people demonstrating for the right to forcibly hold vegetative people alive even when they would not be able to live without artificial assistance and are likely enduring at best a living Hell, because "life" and "living" are 2 different things.
Then again, many of these self-same good Christian people have absolutely no problem with a Death Penalty, even though it removes even the slimmest chance that the person so convicted might wake up one day 50 years hence and repent. Or for that matter, be exonerated.
I feel like I've lost a member of the family.
I started reading the Discworld novels to my daughter when she was seven years old. She decided that Hogfather was her most favorite novel and brought it to school for book appreciation day in second grade. (Around 2001.) This caused a hasty parent/teacher conference where I was asked pointedly why I was reading books to my grade school daughter where the main character was Death.
A few years later I wrote about this incident to Terry and passed along a question from my daughter -- what's on the other side of the discworld? Is there a bottom discworld, or just a big brass sign that says "content on other side"? [1]
On the incident, Terry responded "Ah, teachers. We used to have ones that were educated. Once you could respect them." and went on to say that The Amazing Maurice which also has Death as a character, won the Carnegie Medal from children's librarians. About the bottom of the discworld, he said there would only be wet rocks and perhaps some specialized form of life.
God, I'm going to miss him.
[1] I was a Laserdisc enthusiast, and daughter knew that this was the message you got when you played the wrong side of a one-sided disc.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.