Ah, those compassionate people at Dignitas, the Swiss assisted suicide clinic that will make you dead for about $10,000. Allegedly, they dumped the ashes of former “clients” in a lake. From the story:
BOSSES of Swiss suicide firm Dignitas were facing jail today after the discovery of up to 300 urns containing human remains in a lake. British “suicide tourist” ashes are believed to be in some of the caskets found at the bottom of Lake Zurich by police divers. Authorities were first alerted in 2008 when Dignitas staff were caught pouring the ashes of 20 clients into the water.
But “piles” of urns bearing the logo of the company’s cremation service have now been found by chance on the lake bed. Dignitas boss Ludwig Minelli now faces up to three years jail and a £3,000 fine for carrying out unauthorised burials.
So, facilitating the suicides of these people is perfectly fine, but burying them wrongly–that gets Minelli in trouble! The word irony fails to adequately characterize the situation–particularly as the country’s Supreme Court created a constitutional right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill.
Assisted suicide advocates often claim the mantle of compassion–as Minelli often has. But as with Kevorkian, that is often a mask for indifference and abandonment.
April 27th, 2010 | 1:58 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys. Vince Humphreys said: SHS: Suicide Tourism: Dignitas Dumps Urns in Lake http://bit.ly/bZtQuy #tcot [...]
April 27th, 2010 | 3:07 pm
I don’t need to see the Lake or the urns to know that people killing people as they have is more about a misguided belief that they are god’s or nature’s chosen executioners. The claim of compassion sure is besmirched though as they play toss the urn with the fishes.
April 27th, 2010 | 5:54 pm
Soraya Wernli admits Dignitas has done this for years. She is the former employee who exposed all sorts of shady practices. See http://www.lifenews.com/bio2714.html
April 27th, 2010 | 7:00 pm
[...] this link: Suicide Tourism: Dignitas Dumps Urns in Lake » Secondhand Smoke … Posted in Lake | Tags: after-the-discovery, bottom, caskets, containing-human, dignitas, [...]
April 28th, 2010 | 8:06 am
Perhaps they should change their name:
dignitas, dignitatis F. worth; dignity
April 28th, 2010 | 7:49 pm
[cross-posted on First Thoughts] I don’t think its fair to say that legalized suicide leads to tossed urns. Sadly, unscrupulous businesses engange in this kind of dumping with some frequency.
In 2002, over 300 bodies (not urns) were found dumped on the grounds of the Tri-State Crematory in Noble, Georgia. Last year bodies were found dumped, others dismembered, and still others buried on top of others (plots double-sold) at the Burr Oak Cemetery in suburban Chicago – affecting over 200 families.
April 29th, 2010 | 11:30 am
I don’t believe Wesley was saying that legalized suicide necesssarily leads to tossed urns, except insofar as a general lack of reverence for life probably carries over to treatment of the remains. The point is that a) the outrage in the press is over the remains, NOT the treament of the people when they were alive, which is just sad, and b) this is a profitable industry that needs suicide tourists to make a nice living, sucks them in, and then doesn’t have the decency to treat the remains of their victims with even a modicum of respect.
May 3rd, 2010 | 9:05 am
It’s getting harder and harder to get good help. They’re supposed to empty the CONTENTS of the urns into the lake. The story reminds me of one about a gardener who kept yelling “Green side up!!” at his [add a nationality] work crew; they were installing sod.
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