Assisted suicide has tremendous power to rend family unity and sow distrust over motives. A recent suicide tourism case in the UK–in which a rich widow committed suicide, changing her will to benefit the son who helped–illustrates the danger. From the story:
DETECTIVES are investigating the death of a wealthy British widow at a Swiss suicide clinic amid confusion over a key legal document. Kathleen Dobson was not terminally ill but suffering from rheumatoid arthritis when she decided to end her life at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich. A friend said that although the 74-year-old multi-millionairess had been in some pain, she was able to drive, enjoyed playing bridge and had a satisfying social life on Guernsey. In April 2008 she fi lled out a Dignitas form which required that photo- copies of her instructions must be sent to her three sons, Richard Carlton, Graham Carlton and Robert Carlton. Although she made Richard and Graham aware of her intentions and they accompanied her to Switzerland, Robert was not sent the photocopies and believed she was living a normal life. In June that year Mrs Dobson changed her will, leaving her home, a bungalow worth £815,000, to Richard and £100,000 to his partner Nicola. They live in the property, The Meadows, near Guernsey’s capital St Peter Port.
Robert Carlton, who lives in Dorset, says he was not told of his mother’s decision to change her will and was surprised because as far as he knew she had already left another property on the island, worth £1.7million, to Richard. Robert told the Sunday Express: “The document which carries my name and says I have a photocopy of my mother’s instructions to take her life, is fraudulent. I was kept in the dark over her visit to Dignitas and was never sent any documents by them or anyone else.
Assisted suicide abandons the suffering, exposes the vulnerable to coercion and pressure (as in the Delury case), and can tear families apart. In the end, it is the opposite of compassion.
April 12th, 2010 | 1:52 pm
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April 12th, 2010 | 3:07 pm
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April 12th, 2010 | 4:41 pm
It’s like an Agatha Christie mystery with a 21st century plot twist! Greed and envy lives on, even if we think that we can engineer the beginning and the end of life; and even if we think that we are somehow above that rather nasty business of sinning.
Thanks for posting this!
April 12th, 2010 | 5:06 pm
“Assisted suicide has tremendous power to rend family unity and sow distrust over motives.”
So do lots of things, including sex, religion and politics. So what else is new? The woman decided to end her life. As for notifying son no. 3, it’s a matter of “she said, he said.” Nice try, but I don’t think you’re fooling anybody.
April 12th, 2010 | 5:35 pm
HistoryWriter:
What are you going on about??
Secondly:
Someone committed suicide over rheumatoid arthritis?! What’s next? Suicide over a bad knee??
(For the record: I’ve had multiple sufferers of
this disease in my family and, yeah, it’s no picnic, but if you’re taking your meds, there is no way you could reasonably be ill enough–even in the worst-case–to want to check out *due to the disease*.)
April 12th, 2010 | 5:54 pm
[...] The rest is here: Suicide Tourism Tears Family Apart » Secondhand Smoke | A First … [...]
April 12th, 2010 | 8:41 pm
HistoryWriter, do I detect a lack of compassion, a jaded lack of interest in the plight of the woman who ended her life rather than deal with arthritis? A cynicism that sees in her son’s mentioning of the will only a vulture seeking monetary gain from his mother’s demise?
What I assumed was that he was shocked by what happened. Those who “assisted” the poor woman are the ones who are evil here. They “assisted” her right out of her property and her life! Sounds like the other two sons deserve the biting comments, not the one who had no idea that his siblings were up to no good.
But your comments don’t really surprise me. Such remarks go hand in hand with the false compassion of the hard of heart.
April 12th, 2010 | 9:16 pm
If one has a right to control one’s own body, and no other moral principle enters into the picture, then it would be imoral, for anyone, for any reason, to restrict a competent adult from killing himself. Why are those who support assisted suicide not making this point? I’ll tell you why: they know that public support for it would erode faster than the speed of light, but they’re caught in this logical straightjacket.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
April 12th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
But your premise is false, Bret. Otherwise, we couldn’t stop people from cutting themselves, burning themselves, drinking bleach, taking heroin, etc.
April 12th, 2010 | 9:48 pm
Wesley Smith: I’m not so sure. we, as a society, believe that the premise that one has a right to control one’s body is correct, otherwise we wouldn’t let people choose their own careers, become grossly overwieght, etc. True, we due restrict the things that you mention, but not because we deny the notion that we have the right to control our bodies. We restrict them because they conflict with another well accepted notion, that there are moral goods, such as not harming a well functioning body. This needs to be coherenting blended with the above notion that we have a right to control our own bodies, so that accepting one, does not entail being in logical coflict with the other. right now, we believe both, but cannot provide a logical foundation that they both rest on.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
April 12th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Right Bret Lythgoe, it’s a dynamic tension. We seek to maximize individual liberty, protect the vulnerable, and ensure a decent society.
April 13th, 2010 | 6:16 am
Wesley & Bret:
Now you’re finally seeing the problem. How much individual freedom are you willing to write off to “ensure a decent society”, and how much of “a decent society” are you willing to write off to “maximize individual liberty.” How is the balance to be struck, on what basis and by whom?
HW
April 13th, 2010 | 6:19 am
ECM wrote: “Someone committed suicide over rheumatoid arthritis?! What’s next? Suicide over a bad knee??”
Perhaps so, if the individual thought it was worth it. You wouldn’t do it, nor would I, but then I wouldn’t climb Mt. Everest or sky-dive either. Chaqu’un a son gout, as the French say.
April 13th, 2010 | 12:24 pm
I think what Smith is insinuating, without any knowledge, is that the woman was coerced into going to Dignitas by the two inheriting sons. This is only news here because it involves a lot of money and Dignitas; and because it perfectly (tangentially) fits the common argument that elders are being coerced into aid in dying (because, of course, they are silly and vulnerable, deserve no autonomy and need to be protected by “pro-life” groups. See women’s reproductive rights). If you don’t have real evidence, what can you do? Make sloppy posts that work the emotions but state little fact. Wills are contested daily and in droves. What would have been a solution to the above situation is precisely something that Smith never writes about: end of life planning that involves caregivers and family members. Not a foreign end-of-life agency and the postal service.
April 13th, 2010 | 2:06 pm
I think the balance is pretty easy to strike, and things are pretty much in perfect balance all the time. We have a very decent society and we have lots of individual liberty. When the balance seems wrong to someone on something specific like suicide, they speak up and we maybe adjust how much liberty we give people or how much to protect society. In this case, I think it’s super important to restrict individual liberty so that no one ever has to wonder if it is right for them to go on living or if they should end their life. No decent society could ever suggest that it is ever right for anyone to end their life.
April 13th, 2010 | 7:48 pm
Wesley& history writer: I think that you are both missing my point. Obviously, from a pragmatic standpoint, we devise laws that reflect our two, ostensibly irreconcilable notions, that we hold dear: the right to control one’s body, and the rational good of the person. My point is, we need to find a way to synthesize these two notions, into a coherent whole, where we start with self evident axioms, and then deduce a system, that necessarily leads to the logical entailment of both.
April 15th, 2010 | 2:59 pm
Ann, I think the fact that the two sons who knew about the woman’s decision are also the two who stood the gain financially from said decision says a lot. You may think it far-fetched. I find it rather odd. I find it downright suspicious. The third son was left out of the deal and the will, apparently. Seems mighty fishy to me. Sounds like some folks preyed on someone who was in a vulnerable position, to their own gain. And to her demise. If that’s what happened, don’t you think that’s reprehensible?
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