Democracy means nothing any more. The UK Parliament repeatedly refused to legalize assisted suicide. Then, a woman with MS named Debbie Purdy wanted to be able to go to Switzerland to kill herself, with her husband in attendance. So she sued. The Lords–the UK’s supreme court–ruled that she had a right to know whether her husband would be prosecuted and ordered the prosecutor to publish guidelines as to when the law would and would not be enforced.
The prosecutor has gone beyond the court ruling and decriminalized assisted suicides in country committed by friends and relatives of people with terminally illnesses and serious disabilities. From the story:
HELPING terminally ill and incurably disabled patients to commit suicide is set to be decriminalised in Britain under guidance to be issued this week. Those who assist a friend or relative to end their lives on compassionate grounds will not be prosecuted, under guidelines to be announced by Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions. However, it will still be a crime to act as “ringleader” or “organiser” of the death of a person who has been “vulnerable to manipulation”. The guidelines are expected to make clear the difference between someone “assisting” and someone “encouraging” a suicide.
That’s pretense. The door is now wide open.
A few further points:
1. This further proves assisted suicide is not about terminal illness.
2. This further proves that assisted suicide isn’t a medical act.
3. It is another illustration how the rule of law is crumbling.
4. It sends a loud message that the lives of the terminally ill and disabled are not as worth protecting as those of other people.
5. Principle means almost nothing any more. All that matters is how a person feels in a given situation (which we also see in other areas of concern to SHS).
6. This fiat will guarantees the exploitation and abusive deaths of at least some vulnerable people. In this regard, let us remember the case of George Delury who assisted the suicide of MS patient Myrna Lebov, supposedly because she couldn’t stand the suffering caused by her disability. After he pleaded guilty and received a slap on the wrist from the court investigative journalism and the publication of his diary showed that far from being compassionate, DeLury wanted Lebov dead to cure his misery. Here’s an excerpt of my description of the case from Forced Exit (citations omitted):
The lid blew off Delury’s claim of selfless altruism when the New York district attorney’s office released the contents of his diary. It revealed that Lebov did not have an unwavering and long-stated desire to die, as he had alleged. Rather, as often happens with people struggling with serious illnesses, her moods waxed and waned. One day she would be suicidal but the next day, Delury’s diary revealed his wife wanting to engage in life. Moreover, the diary clearly demonstrated that it was Delury, not Lebov, who had the unremitting suicide agenda.
Delury admitted that he encouraged his wife to kill herself, or as he put it, “to decide to quit.” He researched her antidepressant medication to see if it could kill her, and when she took less than the prescribed amount, which in and of itself could cause depression, he used the surplus to mix the poisonous brew that ended her life.
But he went further than that. He helped destroy her will to live by making her feel worthless and a burden on him…On March 28, 1995, Delury wrote in his diary of his plans to tell his wife the following: “I have work to do, people to see, places to travel. But no one asks about my needs. I have fallen prey to the tyranny of a victim. You are sucking my life out of my [sic] like a vampire and nobody cares. In fact, it would appear that I am about to be cast in the role of villain because I no longer believe in you.” Delury later admitted on the NBC program Dateline that he had shown Lebov this very passage…
Finally, on July 4, Delury got what he wanted: his wife’s death. After postponing an earlier suicide date that her husband had advocated, the couple’s anniversary, Lebov swallowed the overdose of antidepressant medicine that her husband prepared for her, and died. George Delury did not wait for her death by her bedside, but according to his diary, went into another room and went to sleep. The next morning he wrote, “Slept through the alarm. It’s over. Myrna is dead. Desolation.”
In the UK, this case would not be prosecuted–unless the diary was discovered, since Delury had convinced the media and law enforcement that his motive was noble.
Mark my words, this decriminalization is only the beginning. Purdy, the court, and the prosecuter have flung the UK off a sheer moral cliff that will dash the sanctity/equality of human life ethic on the sharp rocks of legalized euthanasia and death on demand. Culture of death, Wesley? What culture of death?
September 20th, 2009 | 11:38 pm
Two wrongs don’t make “ONE” right and the two wrongs in this matter as most probably know are that the law should not allow a person directly or indirectly to take their life no matter how sympathetic we might feel about “IT” cause God’s The Only One who should be allowed to take a life cause “In God We Trust”
The second wrong is for us humans to be seduced by “Euthanasia” to convince humans to worship “Death” in the hope that thinks will be a LOT less painful in the here after.
Although if I was walking in these peoples shoes, I might even want to die myself but then I would still consider “IT” another wrong. Go Figure!
I’m sure that we could all write on this for ever and a day and have varied arguments but what good will “IT” do if we don’t trust in God any more?
Thank you for allowing my Canadian two cents worth Wesley.
God Bless,
Peace
September 21st, 2009 | 7:45 am
1. “This further proves assisted suicide is not about terminal illness.”
A half-truth. No one argues that it is exclusively so. It is about ANY reason that a person has for wanting to terminate his/her own life.
2. “This further proves that assisted suicide isn’t a medical act.”
Another half-truth. It can be, but it need not be. However I think it’s preferable for someone who knows what he/she is doing to supervise the process.
3. “It is another illustration how the rule of law is crumbling.”
Where? In the U.K. Not necessarily in the U.S.
4. “It sends a loud message that the lives of the terminally ill and disabled are not as worth protecting as those of other people.”
Nonsense. It sends no such message. And didn’t you say just a couple of paragraphs back that assisted suicide is NOT about terminal illness. One might ask “worth protecting” by whom? A bunch of busybodies who get their jollies by interfering in other people’s affairs?
5. “Principle means almost nothing any more. All that matters is how a person feels in a given situation (which we also see in other areas of concern to SHS).”
Whose “principle.” Yours? Mine? The Pope’s? Kindly keep your principles off other people’s bodies. If it ain’t illegal it’s none of your business.
6. “This fiat will guarantees the exploitation and abusive deaths of at least some vulnerable people…..”
So it may. So may insurance company rationing of health care. So may the lack of restrictions on handguns. So may air pollution. Dictators enact laws because of what “might” happen. In democratic republics such as ours we enact them when they’re demonstrably necessary. You cite a single incident as your entire case.
September 21st, 2009 | 10:03 am
This is absolutely disgusting. It reminds me of that case a year or so ago (?) in which the son wrote about his mother’s death for, I think, the Telegraph or another British publication — she was going to die but not yet, and she killed herself at what was obviously her family’s request before she got really ill and inconvenienced them. All the son could muster up for his mother was irritation that she COULD have had a nice moment with her family all around her, but instead she was difficult and annoying and even made the “doctor” wait while she dithered around. Annoying over being asked to die!
September 21st, 2009 | 10:43 am
History Writer: Do you care a tittle about the facts? Compassion and Choices repeatedly and insistently argues that it is only about terminal illness. Now, if you say they don’t mean it, we are on the same page. But to say no one argues that is false.
September 21st, 2009 | 1:24 pm
[...] Via Wesley J. Smith at Secondhand Smoke. [...]
September 21st, 2009 | 1:53 pm
HW:
Some principles have to apply to our society on a larger scale. This isn’t a matter of who one chooses to have sex with or even a matter of abortion, which, under the law, has been legal for several years. This is about withholding social support from desperate, sick, born people and allowing them to jump into the abyss because they are suffering. Social ethics up to this point have held that we, society, have a duty to help such people lead better lives by having access to the pain control and accommodations they need to live fulfilling, comfortable lives until those lives come to their natural end. Legalizing assisted suicide abandons this ethic and replaces it with suicide prevention that is limited to the nondisabled.
September 21st, 2009 | 3:14 pm
Wesley: Compassion & Choices aren’t the only assisted suicide advocates in the world.
September 22nd, 2009 | 1:58 am
[...] Wesley Smith writes about how a prosecutor has decided to decriminalize assisted suicide in Britain. [...]
September 22nd, 2009 | 8:52 am
HistoryWriter, you say: “…If it ain’t illegal it’s none of your business..” Well it IS illegal so presumably you accept it is our business. Until, that is, people like you pass a law to say assisted suicide is legal. Then I guess it will be OK. Slavery was legal once. Would you have opposed those who objected to it? Discrimination against minorities was legal. How dare the Civil Rights movement protest? You have no ground to stand on except the shifting sands of opinion.
The decision in the Purdy case is a disgrace. Since when has the highest court in the land (I am British and a lawyer so I have an interest here) invited law officers to say which laws of the land should not be upheld? Should men be able to demand guidance as to cases in which sex with under-age girls not be prosecuted? The court should demand that all laws be upheld.
In common law, motive (as opposed to “mens rea”) is not usually relevant. If I kill someone when I have the intention of killing or injuring them, I am guilty of murder whether I am a gangland contract killer or a disgruntled spouse.
As the facts of the Lebov case illustrate, a wicked person might easily get away with murder. What about the case of two relatives accompanying the suicide to the Swiss clinic to die. One believes they want to die, the other knows they have serious doubts but secretly hates them and will be happy for them to die. Presumably one is guilty (but only if their motives are found out) and the other not, although both will have acted in just the same way.
The United Kingdom is now taking a disastrous step, blindly and with minimal public debate. May God help us.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact