But choice was the concept that led to the legalization of abortion.
Pro-lifers warned that women would be coereced or reduced into having abortions.
But we were dismissed.
And now abortioneers talk about "not doing abortions for boyfriends" and teary-eyed women talk about having been forced to have an abortion by parents.
And you can see the same thing coming with euthanasia.
How voluntary is “voluntary”?:
However, in the latest issue of the JLM a criminologist at the University of Tasmania has made a vigorous response. Jeremy Prichard doubts that many people in the community will be able to give full and voluntary consent to ending their lives. He contends that the growing prevalence of elder abuse suggests that aged people could easily be manipulated.
“Such procedures may be safe for socially connected, financially independent individuals with high autonomy and self-efficacy,” he writes, but “circumstances may be entirely different for isolated patients with low self-efficacy who represent an unwanted burden to their carers, some of whom may benefit financially from the death of the patient (even just in a reduction of financial pressure).”
Remember the therapeutic abortion committees? They were supposed to be the abortion gatekeepers, making sure that every abortion was truly needed and that all the criteria were met before a woman had one.
We now know what a farce that was.
You can be sure death panels-- or whatever they choose to call it-- will essentially be the same thing. People will say they want to die but they don't really want to. And the panel will rubber stamp it.
Eventually pro-lifers will be proven right yet again. And right-to-die people will move away from the choice mantra and come up with some Orwellian phrase to re-frame their cause.
Autonomy as an absolute is a false god.
