DISQUS

tbhull · 11 months ago

I have no problem with one execrsing a right to die. However, putting it on TV is difficult for me to accept. Though a nice respectable format today, today's documentary is tomorrow's American Suicide Idol.

Julien Sharp · 11 months ago

I think showing it on TV is vital, regardless of the controversy. It shows this man and his family as "real" people suffering with a "real" devastating and debilitating illness. There is no happy ending for this family, but the inevitable ending is taken on THEIR terms, and I think this is a very empowering thing to see. I only hope that if something like this were to happen to me or my signif, we would have the ability to make the same choice.

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

I agree. A lot of people can't imagine a situation in which it would be ethically acceptable to die. They need to have it SHOWN to them. My G-d, can you imagine NOT being able to do ANYTHING for yourself. Being a prisoner of your own body for years, and years? Unacceptable! No quality of life! I would choose the same thing and others need to grow up and see / experience what other's have to face. How dare anyone say G-d doesn't have Grace for people like this poor man.

tbhull · 11 months ago

I hear the argument and do agree to some extent. It is a difficult issue and light is the best thing for the issue. It is my cynicism that makes me say no, because if the ratings are good I know where this will go.

Gindy · 11 months ago

Would that we could all go with such dignity and grace.
Peace on you and your family, Mr. Ewert.

Cpeterka · 11 months ago

That's what I would want.
Good for you Ewert! See you on the other side in 20+ years or so.

Florida Mom · 11 months ago

ok - I just watched Obama's press conference on ABC. It was on his latest appointments, and after he intro'd Daschle, he took questions from the press - they all, of course, focused on the Ill Gov deal - the last question, asked by Reuters, the questioner said, 'at the risk of annoying everyone, I am going to ask a question about healthcare' - great, I am thinking, we finally get to hear about a real issue! Then, before Obama answers, ABC cuts back in to end the coverage!!! Charlie Gibson points to the question about healthcare and says it is vitally important issue - but I am thinking, not 'vital' enough to not cut away and hear what Obama has to say about how he is going to pay for it! AAAHHHH!!!! Come on ABC, let us see what is really important!!!

Rob Mule · 11 months ago

The media is ONLY interested in stunting now that profits have vanished and bad investments seek roosting spots near one's McMansion...Charlie will be bumped for an fatherly adult entertainer type with great pipes.

So Sick of The Right · 11 months ago

Ahh, the Heidi cut-away.

Crazy8 · 11 months ago

The last time I saw Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolis is when they asked Barak why he didn't wear a lapel pin. Thy are either fools or tools - either way ABC/Disney has nothing to do with the news.

caphillprof · 11 months ago

The Catholic Church likes to play God.

Rob Mule · 11 months ago

I agree with tbhull...today's corporate media perverts everything it touches...

OT-Bushie's "Heck of a Good Space Job" NASA Administrator , according to the Orlando-Sentinel, is not being a good Transition Team player:
Griffin demanded to speak directly to Obama...Griffin is scripting NASA employees and civilian contractors on what they can tell the transition team and has warned aerospace executives not to criticize the agency’s moon program, sources said.

The Spice must flow...
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_the...

dula · 11 months ago

Javier Bardem made a great movie about this called The Sea Inside...based on a true story in Spain.

Gary SF · 11 months ago

I agree. This is one of the best movies I have ever seen.

Indigo · 11 months ago

Oh the day the Catholic leadership, and the more self-righteous Christians among us, learn to care about people once they're born.
Yes, true. Do they have nothing more than foetus-worship in their religion? The Catholics will abort any thing except a foetus. They're eager to abort the hopes and expectations, even the rights of the gay community but it doesn't stop there. They glorify women foolishing dying in childbirth rather than abort a life-limiting birthing. They eagerly steal from widows and limit the hopes and plans of orphans in order to keep secure the ambitions of their SNF (sacred nuclear families). The despise the realities of the world in favor of the pseudo-idealistic realm they pretend to conjure. They play on the guilt of innocents to line their pockets with gold.

I have neither patience nor respect nor willingness to work with them. Mother Teresa was a beard for their unrelenting malice. They'll abort anything as long as it isn't a foetus.

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

G-d bless that poor man on his journey home. Judge not lest ye be judged.

Milli · 11 months ago

Some church leaders would rather see a man suffer a painful and slow death, a woman give birth to her rapists baby, and a gay person live in a cloud of shame and loneliness for all eternity. Yeah, thats compassion.

What happened to leaving these things up to God?

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

They think they have the mind of G-d. They define G-d down to their level. I think that is one of the biggest sins of all. Thinking one is somehow that omniscient or "all knowing" to think they can hoard G-d's eternal and infinite grace over others.

lilybart · 11 months ago

I think they don't really believe in god. Or they certainly don't trust god to make good on judgment of others. Why else do they insist on legislating away sin? Passing a law against a sin never changed a heart or saved a soul form eternal damnation.

Nope, they no longer believe in god so they must do god's work for him.

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

correct.

Gary SF · 11 months ago

Actually, given the Vatican's rejection of a UN resolution that was intended to move countries like Nigeria from imposing the death penalty for being gay, they would rather see us stoned to death than allow us the right to marry.

Older_Wiser · 11 months ago

A wonderful story...it made me cry. Who wants to live with absolutely no quality of life? Truly an amazing couple with no illusions about life and death.

larry · 11 months ago

Morbid and uncivilized to broadcast something as sacred as passing no matter how. I get the point but to broadcast the process is uncivilized. Welcome to the Coliseum of Rome and the British people should be ashamed.

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

Welcome to the minority opinion. I think it is beautiful this couple decided to show their limited choices, and the choice they made. I also think his death, considering his limited choices, was selfless and classy. He died listening to Beethoven, for G-d's sake. Uh, Roman Colliseum? NOT!

lilybart · 11 months ago

I agree. It is important for the general public to understand why someone would want to do this and to see what his life is like, really like, helps educate those who would deny people this right.

Gary SF · 11 months ago

Yeah, it is much more civilized for people of certain faiths to impose their belief systems upon others. This is hardly the Coliseum, however I would support the creation "Celebrity Suicide Idol" if it would shift our country away from insipid 'reality' shows.

lilybart · 11 months ago

Good one!!

cosanostradamus · 11 months ago

.
Yes. It would be nice to choose one's own time and place, method and circumstances of death.
Unfortunately, most of us don't get to do that. Including this guy, mistakenly killed by gay bashers.
.

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

THANK YOU for posting your link! After reading it, I thought, "THIS has the potential to be another watershed moment for the LGBT community to finally get Hate Crimes Laws passed! This is a horrible example of WHY we need those laws!" Question: Where are the candle light vigils? Where is Ellen Degeneris, and others who have the national spotlight? There needs to be a media spotlight on this story! This story could be and SHOULD BE HUGE!!!

cosanostradamus · 11 months ago

.
I dunno. It was in all the NY papers for three days, then the guy died of his injuries, in the hospital. The cops say they're aggressively pursuing this, which they usually do for big media cases. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly came right out and said it was an anti-Latino AND ["perceived"] anti-gay hate crime, even though the guy wasn't gay, because the bastards thought he was. But today there's nothing in the papers. There was talk of some action by the NY gay community, which is huge. Latino's are up in arms; it's like third incident in the past month or so. But so far, nada.

Bush may be gone, but his hate lives on.

I'd like to see Obama in Brooklyn, or Michelle. The "alleged perp" was black, like so many of those people who voted against civil rights in CA. There needs to be some kind of civil rights summit or something. This "divide & conquer" is getting ugly. And deadly.
.

RitornaVincitor · 11 months ago

We are temporary beings living on this little blue planet in the midst of a great void. We make the rules. If some choose to believe that the manner of our death is preordained and must remain outside of our personal control, they are free to do so. But let them not presume to ordain for others the manner of their passing. Our lives are our own.

lilybart · 11 months ago

I believe we have the right to die as we wish, as long as there is no mental illness driving it OR because our stupid drug laws scare doctors so the patient can't manage their pain.

lilybart · 11 months ago

The scariest thing to me would be to end up a quadrapalegic, unable to kill yourself if that is what you wanted to do.

alexa · 11 months ago

My son became a quadraplegic 25 years ago when he was assauted by an 8 year old neighbor. Fortunately he can say a few words from time to time. Yes, it's horrific what he and others ( cerebral pals, etc.) go through, but he's never given us an indication that he'd rather die.

alexa · 11 months ago

corrrection: palsy

lilybart · 11 months ago

So sorry to hear this. I am only arguing for personal choice, not that all want to die.

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

Yes, I'm not advocating everyone should die, just those who would choose to die in the other gentleman's circumstances. What happened to your son and to the gentleman in question is not the same thing.

I'm very sorry for what happened to your son, by the way.

Donna in Rome · 11 months ago

Some years back I saw another case on TV here. It was a Dutch man and he was able to die in his own home. If I remember correctly, it was done by injection (or something put into his IV). It was very peaceful, with his wife there, in his own home environment. The Swiss setting (and maybe the method: sounds a little like Jonestown, and for someone who can't swallow they'd have to use a different one) sounds a bit more alienating to me. (But of course the man wasn't in his own country, either.)

lilybart · 11 months ago

This issue is like so many other personal choice issues; reproductive choice and the use of mood-altering substances. And it also is like the gay rights issue in that Religion drives the opposition. So obvious why religion should be kept out of government. Anything I do with my own body and my own consensual relationships should be of no interest to the STATE. The State should only protect me from others, not from myself.

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

EXACTLY, I don't want some less evolved neanderthal Republican making decisions for me based on their LIMITED education and theology based on some cartoonish version of what they think Jesus Christ's life and message is all about!

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

Imagine yourself... trapped in your own body... not able to move any muscles. You have to rely on everyone to do EVERYTHING for you. You want something desperately but can not ask for it. You are screaming into your own brain! What kind of monster would want someone to experience that kind of hell on earth?!!? If I knew I was going to a prison like that, I would end my life, as well. Quality of LIFE or no LIFE at all! Those people who think otherwise are delusional. We all die a physical death. It would be nice to be able to choose when and how when faced with those kind of horrible circumstances this poor man and his family had to face!

woodnthrifty · 11 months ago

Well Said.

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

Thanks... I think sometimes people don't even consider what someone like him must be going through. Imagine something as simple as needing to scratch an itch, or a horrible stinging constant pain but not being able to SAY ANYTHING or move a muscle... I don't blame that man or his family, and I honor them for showing others their situation to hopefully make others THINK before they JUDGE.

Gridlock · 11 months ago

As it should be in these unfortunate situations..

dignified, peaceful, loving, and a choice.

Butch · 11 months ago

I guess I'm in the minority here but I'm disgusted, not by the act but by the TV station's decision to televise it. It was ratings and nothing else, the next "reality."

Gridlock · 11 months ago

How do you know without actually viewing it and seeing the context?

Was it sensationalized? Lotsof whooshy graphics?

Or was it respectful?

triple7s · 11 months ago

It's been done before, with the dying process, and it was BEAUTIFUL. The camera followed the terminal illness of a man, and his relationships throughout the entire process. To me it was very uplifting. I think it would be wonderful to have the choice and control to make the most important FINAL decision for myself. Hope it's around when or if I need it. Dying is something each of us will experience. The more we talk about it the better.

Naked Bunny with a Whip · 11 months ago

"His wife holds his hand as he begins dying."

As he finishes dying, actually, which is the point.

Butch1 · 11 months ago

Both states of Oregon and Washington now have a laws in place to assist those who want to die with some dignity. Of course, when one wanted to do it back in the beginning of Bush's tenure, His religious, patriotic singing lacky in charge of justice, swooped in with the FBI and said that it wasn't going to happen and whilst were at it, the legally dispensed medical marijuana was also stopped and offices were broken into and the legal marijuana confiscated. Let's see if this continues with the new administration. I think it won't.

al75 · 11 months ago

There is no "ninth movement" of any Beethoven symphony. Presumably the poster meant the 9th Symphony. This little error exemplifies my concerns about assisted suicide: how carefully was this man, or will others be, screened for depression? How can patients be protected from pressure to do themselves in from family members or insurance companies? How can we protect all of us from society offering suicide (cheap) instead of good nursing and medical care (costly).

These are important questions, and deserve more than a "ninth movement" level of consideration.

Thanks for listening.

vkobaya · 11 months ago

How can we protect all of us from society offering suicide (cheap) instead of good nursing and medical care (costly).

I'm more worried about living in the nation under Bush in which euthanasia is legal. He would say, poor Obama, poor Kerry, poor Gore. They are suffering so badly and clearly want to die. Of course, we can help them commit suicide. Just more of being a compassionate conservative.

Steve_in_CNJ · 11 months ago

what passes for reality tv is mind-numbing 'activity' without meaning. you could easily substitute barnyard animals for the humans. no courage or heroism. no searching. what ewert and mary are sharing with the rest of the world is very different. it's not just activity. it's real. it's about us and our situation. but if you can't cope with it, that's ok too. record it for later.

bunnyjump · 11 months ago

After one experiences a loved one's excruciatingly painful death...there is no way to deny or criticize a terminally Ill person's decision to choose to die.

Brad · 11 months ago

Society benefits from having this generous act, of the curtain drawn back from the sadness of losses of functioning and the kindness of recognizing a persons authority in choosing whether to exist or not.

This emotional fuel can spur people to recognize the need for promoting new pathways to life-health extension technologies, especially stem cells and therapeutic cloning of replacement parts.

cowboyneok · 11 months ago

good points. Yeah, what Brad just said.

Anthony · 11 months ago

I can understand the cynicism, but there is nothing intrinsically exploitative about the medium of television. A sensitive piece of documentary-making doesn't become tacky just because it was broadcast on TV. Nor do I believe that showing this man's assisted suicide will arouse any kind of public appetite for watching snuff films.

For those who feel that a person's death is too private to be the topic for a documentary, I suggest that this is a reflection of our society's terrible fear of facing death. Obviously the man in question didn't feel it was too private to be shown, or at least felt that publicising the issue was more important than his desire for privacy.

Asterix · 11 months ago

To those who object to televising a man's final departure, may I humbly suggest that we televise the pain and suffering of those who have not the luck to be in a situation where they can choose to end their lives. My father pretty much went out of his mind with the pain of cancer during his final month and no longer even recognized his family. Just a semiconscious moaning lump of flesh.

Death is part of our environment. We eat dead animals, yet would prefer not to think about how they got that way. Death is as much a part of life as birth is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slOY4cSVfy8

cwzilla · 11 months ago

In my own opinion it should be the persons desision if he/she is of clear mind and in intolerable pain . its their desicion not anyone elses it should be more about the quality of life instead of quanity of life . your probably gona hear with the nashing of teeth the religious wrong scream about how this is a sin but whats more a sin haveing someone suffer for your religious ideology or haveing compasssion and letting them end it in dignity.

redjellydonut · 11 months ago

Several years ago, I started experiencing a variety of strange nerological symptoms that appeared identical to ALS. It wasn't ALS, but for the several weeks between the time I first went to the doctor and the time when the final test result concluded it was something benign, I spent an terrible amount of time thinking about and planning exactly what Craig Ewert did. There isn't much difference between what he did and what I would've done: Leave my home and fly to Switzerland to die.

There is much to admire in American and British social ethics, but one of their great scandals is their enslavement to superstition and religiosity in the matter that is more fundamental to human identity than absolutely any other: Deciding when and how to end one's existence. Any culture that claims to respect the sanctity of the individual over the collective, as we do in the U.S., cannot hold dominion over this issue of life and death. To do so is at a fundamental level a crime against humanity, or at least the idea of what it means to be human.

2008 · 11 months ago

There IS a slippery slope here... You can see how everyone rushes to get plastic surgery because it's the "in thing" and so few people are satisfied "as is" with their physical being in the here and now.

I also have a young relative (very young) with a fatal, rare, degenerative disease. I can see the depression building in her little eyes with all the treatments that keep her alive, but she has so much to teach others and share with her family!... They/we love her a lot, but her life is a huge and often painful challenge.

I've grown to believe that she may have impossible challenges, but she cannot have a 'choice.' She MUST continue for all her family, friends, school classmates, church, community, medical team, etc. They are learning, expanding, and evolving from the privilege of knowing her under her circumstances. I hear stories and revelations of how people have been so touched by her all the time. (It's also interesting to note that her parents have had an easy life and all the material things you could wish for, but may lack spiritual development... Their daughter can open their eyes--a gift to them!)

I believe everyone truly has a purpose, however "seemingly" small!!