Date: Sunday January 11th 2015
Definition:
A mercy killing is an act of killing someone who is very ill, in order to stop them from suffering any more pain.
Alina helped to explain the definition in Chinese, so I noted down here since a lot of our members are Chinese. If someone can help in other languages to understand more about the topic we are talking, please share with us.
(Mercy Killing) 安乐死就是让一些患有不治之病的人，避免一直承受病苦，二用某种方法让他死亡的手段。
The rules: Rick was the mediator between the two debate teams
- People will need to pick a team (Team A= for Mercy Killings, Team B= against Mercy Killings)
- Rick will kick it off, and each team will pick a Team Captain. The team captain is responsible to make sure that everyone on his/her team gets a chance to participate
Each team will get about 15 minutes to discuss their point before turning over to the other team.
There are 4 sessions, so each team gets two opportunities to discuss their points.
There is also a third category, the “audience” and to provide some of the key points for discussion by Team A and Team B. So in essence, it’s up to Team A and B, to make their point to the “audience” and the audience gets the opportunity to weigh in by asking questions as well, to either A or B
At the end of the debate, the audience, and whoever that is, can say whether or not the debate changed their position on being neutral. The point of an effective debater is to be able to convey a point as effectively as possible, to “sell” their point
Suggestions to prepare for the debate:
Think about your key points, position, and if you can, use historical reference or examples to back up your point. This is suppose to be fun, but also good opportunity to express your ideas
How did the debate happen?
We had a good turnout.
Team A-For were Fan Fan, Alina, Selly, Shah, Haru
Team B-Against were Eshaal, Tata, Angie, Sunita, Rick
Maria, Johny and Masato, and of course, they also had some good discussions on things
Rick posted the links to the chats for this morning. If you want to listen, you could download and enjoy the conversation. Even though you did not join the conversation, you can contribute the group by sharing your idea of the topic. It does not require you have to be perfect in English, just think that this is a chance to use English, to share your opinions with friends.
Johnny was the first one started to share his ideas here.
It was definitely a good idea to record the call, I had the chance to listen the first part in which was absent, I got to listen the opinion of everyone involved in the call, and It was like If I was in the call :).. thanks to that, I can listen each point of view and for the topic in question (Merciful killing) I was holding again the position of “audience” and thanks to having the opportunity to listen the recording I changed my position to “pro” and “against” at the same time, Let me Explain: I am pro when the decision is taken by the patient in his/her full sense and judgment and if that person was thinking about it for long time considering all options. In that case, if they take the decision, I would respect it. However, I am against when the patient is not in full judgment or unconscious (In a comma) because we don’t have rights to take such decision that will affect his/her life and they are not even aware of what is going on.
As for animals, I will be always against. Many people always says that a human being is the only animal that is aware of its own existence and therefore the only animal that is aware that someday we will die, That doesn’t happen with animals, and they always want to live because they don’t know what is death. They don’t have the power to have a say in the matter so we shouldn’t take that decision for them. We can try only to ease their pain as much as we can and let Nature do the rest.
Thanks so much Richard and everyone for being honest and polite and sensitive about the topic, it is a very touchy and serious topic and it must be taken seriously. Thus I would propose for the next time some topic that could be less serious and sad.
Here are interesting parts of the chat. If someone can't get access to the record link, you can try: