[Avodah] No Smokers for My Daughters

[Zev Sero]

Elazar M. Teitz wrote:
> RZev Sero writes:

>> It's generally accepted that one may refuse chemotherapy even if has a 
>> 50% chance of extending ones life for a few months; one is entitled to
>> decide that those few months aren't worth the pain.  So who says that
>> one may not accept a >50% risk of losing a few months at the end of ones
>> life in return for the presumed pleasure of smoking now, decades earlier?

>      Ein hanidon domeh larai'ah.  That one need not take action to 
> extend life doesn't necessarily mean that one may take action to shorten 
> it. 

Sure, one *can* distinguish the two cases that way.  But must one?  Having
established that passively taking such a risk is permitted, where's the
proof that actively doing so is not?  Would one not be required to take
any action that avoids an unacceptable risk of immediate death?


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher