This was absolutely predictable: When the public prosecutor for England and Wales said he would not prosecute some assisted suicides if based on compassionate motives, I warned that it would open the dikes. And now, here it comes. A man with quadriplegia is seeking a court order allowing his wife to give him a lethal injection–clearly, murder–and not face prosecution. From the story:
A man with “locked-in syndrome” has begun legal action, asking the director of public prosecutions to clarify the law on so-called mercy killing. Tony Nicklinson, 56, wants his wife to be allowed to help him die without the risk of being prosecuted for murder. Mr Nicklinson, of Chippenham, Wiltshire, communicates by blinking or nodding his head at letters on a board. His lawyers say he is “fed up with life” and does not wish to spend the next 20 years in this condition. According to his legal team, his only lawful means of ending his life is by starvation – refusing food and liquids. His wife Jane says she is prepared to inject him with a lethal dose of drugs, but this would leave her liable to be charged with murder
This is the logical consequence of appeasing euthanasia/assisted suicide advocacy: It makes people think there is a right to suicide, when there is no such thing. And note–the wife isn’t a doctor, proving, once again, that euthanasia isn’t a medical act. The story points out that a recent jury refusal to convict a mother who committed homicide of her disabled daughter, which also adds to the impetus of this case:
Such cases end up before a jury. In January Kay Gilderdale was cleared of attempted murder after she admitted helping her disabled daughter to die. In that case her daughter Lynn had attempted suicide.
No wonder the disability rights community see themselves as the targets of euthanasia advocacy–they are. What else are they to think when prosecutors and the public agree with despairing disabled people that their lives are not worth living. (We saw the same phenomenon in the Kevorkian acquittals, which so alarmed leaders of the disability rights community that it led to the formation of Not Dead Yet.
July 19th, 2010 | 11:00 pm
Does he have quadrapalegia or “locked in syndrome”? Please clarify.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 19th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
The story says locked in, but the description is of total quadriplegia since it is clear that his condition doesn’t mimic a persistent unconsciousness, since he can nod his head and etc. The ethics and analysis are the same in either event.
July 19th, 2010 | 11:32 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, marc puckett. marc puckett said: Consequences of Euthanasia Appeasement: UK Disabled Man Seeks Court Order Allowing Wife to Murder .. http://bit.ly/aZQQfx [...]
July 20th, 2010 | 1:28 am
It’s not murder to kill someone who wants to die, and can express that wish clearly (or in advance of the injury that disables them if that is the case).
I agree with you completely that disabled people should not be singled out.
But surely the focus is on disabled people only because non disabled people can take independent action if they wish to end their own lives have no need of assistance?
I support a right to euthanasia because that gives disabled people the same rights as me.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 20th, 2010 at 4:13 am
John: Not so. Consent is not a defense to murder, or at least, it hasn’t been. You certainly have the power to make yourself dead via suicide. But you don’t, nor should you, have the right to engage in a conspiracy with others to make you dead.
July 20th, 2010 | 2:10 am
[...] syndrome man demands right to dieThe GuardianWHY DID DOCTORS NOT LEAVE ME TO DIEMirror.co.ukFirst Things (blog) -BBC News -Independentall 47 news [...]
July 20th, 2010 | 2:23 am
“Euthanasia advocacy” is not the problem here (especially if by that term you mean to imply that a relatively small group of vocal activists are seeking to alter community standards).
More than half of the UK population has, for decades, supported a change in the law (about 69% in 1976, over 80% now). A poll carried out a few years ago in Scotland showed that about 51% of respondents would want relatives or doctors to break the existing law and help a loved one die. This slow, inexorable shift in public attitudes is, in my opinion, the cause rather than the consequence of all the activism – and if history is any guide, these community preferences will eventually be codified in law (regardless of what the rest of us might think.)
You think the DPP engaged in “appeasement” and I think he did a rather creditable job of standing his ground. He established that no one would get a free pass, anyone directly involved in actually taking a life would be prosecuted and listed, as one of the factors against prosecution of those who provided less direct assistance, that they would have to ensure that “the suspect had sought to dissuade the victim from taking the course of action which resulted in his or her suicide”.
A ruling of that sort is incapable of making people think there is a legal right to suicide though it might encourage them to press for it. (Most people in the West already believe that, as an extension to our right to personal autonomy, there is a philosophical right to determine the circumstances of ones own death – and no amount of “advocacy” in either direction is going to change this).
July 20th, 2010 | 4:18 am
Raven: The prime culprit was the law Lords, for forcing a prosecutor to state ahead of time when he would not prosecute a violation of the law. Second, the interim policy gave the pass to relatives who assisted the suicides of those with serious disabilities, terminal illnesses, and degenerating conditions–setting them up, in essence, as rational suicides–when motivated by compassion. That sent a very dangerous message. The final regulation was more general, e.g., not specifying the conditions or the assisters that would be less likely to be prosecuted, but the damage was done.
This case is just the next logical step.
July 20th, 2010 | 5:41 am
No matter how miserable your life may be and no matter how hopeless your future and no matter how much you may want to end it all, you can’t. Wesley J. Smith has spoken.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 20th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Dave: What is it about public policy deliberations and debate over its proper don’t you understand? This is about how to best care for despairing people and protect the equality of everyone.
July 20th, 2010 | 7:27 am
[...] BIDS TO END HIS LIFEExpress.co.uk'Locked-in' syndrome man demands right to dieThe GuardianFirst Things (blog) -Independent -ITNall 108 news [...]
July 20th, 2010 | 8:09 am
Raven: Right on! Funny, isn’t it, how people who claim that the hallmark of “human exceptionalism” is the ability to make moral choices will rail against any moral choice that doesn’t fit their agenda?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 20th, 2010 at 9:35 am
What are you two smoking? Moral debate doesn’t belie human exceptionalism. It epitomizes it. No animal does that anywhere.
July 20th, 2010 | 1:13 pm
Wesley:
The public prosecutor granted no one a free pass. In the case in question (that of Debbie Purdy) he quite clearly stated that he would not and could not grant pre-emptive immunity.
Prosecutors make pragmatic decisions all the time about which cases to bring to court (which are in the public interest, which are likely to result in conviction etc). We just have, in this case, a set of general guidelines published because the Law Lords felt Purdy’s husband had a right to know.
You say that their publication “sent a very dangerous message”. I think it did quite the opposite. Prior to the policy’s publication not one family member of any Briton who had gone abroad for assisted suicide had been prosecuted. Debbie Purdy probably thought the ruling would guarantee her husband’s immunity (and by extension, the immunity of others in similar situations). The response she got from the DPP was effectively “we’re still committed to the law – any relatives who provide assistance apart from the most reluctant participation on compassion grounds may be liable to prosecution”. The truly “dangerous message” was sent out by those who attempted to condense the guidelines into a sentence or two for public consumption (e.g “the DPP has said that the CPS will not prosecute some assisted suicides if they are based on compassionate motives”)
With regard to the Nicklinson case, the guidelines seem (to me) rather clear. A lethal injection does not count as “minor encouragement or assistance”, his wife probably stands to gain financially from his death, she is probably, at this stage, his full-time carer and is unlikely to have taken any steps to dissuade him from ending his life. Theirs is a moving and heart-breaking situation but I honestly don’t think there’s even the remotest possibility that the DPP will spare her from prosecution.
What will happen eventually – public opinion is so heavily in favour of it – is a change in the law.
You are understandably worried that any such legal changes may have adverse societal consequences (may, for instance, make it harder to safeguard the interests of people with similar afflictions who choose to carry on living). These are concerns I share.
It is, however, morally unacceptable to deny the rights of one group in an attempt to protect the rights of another – and this is what you appear to be doing when you make the astonishing claim that even though we are autonomous creatures who own our bodies we have no right to kill ourselves. (In what sense then do we “own” our bodies? Whose permission must one ask before one attempts to bring ones suffering to an end?).
Far-fetched thought experiment: A man, armed only with a gun and a single bullet, finds himself alone on an island surrounded by a hundred blood thirsty (and sadistic) cannibals. Can you honestly say he has no right to put the gun to his head and pull the trigger?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 20th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Raven Chukwu: That is what I call the Sand Pebbles example. In the movie, Steve McQueen shoots his pal who has been captured by Boxer rebels (as then called) and is being publicly tortured with the death of a thousand cuts. Whenever that is brought up, my response is that such extremes are not the basis for public policy. Just as sometimes a starving man might steal a loaf of bread, that doesn’t mean we legalize theft. Besides, we aren’t talking suicide but ASSISTED suicide. Big difference.
The PP indicated quite strongly that some people will not be prosecuted when they assist suicides. That is very destructive. It is like when the prosecutor in Oakland County ran on a plank of not prosecuting Kevorkian for assisted suicide. It led K to euthanasia.
July 20th, 2010 | 2:02 pm
I am familiar with the difference between suicide and assisted suicide. However, as part of your general opposition to assisted suicide and euthanasia you have frequently denied patients even a basic right to end their own lives. You have, for instance said (and I am of course paraphrasing) that though we have the power to kill ourselves (or “make ourselves dead”) we have no corresponding right to do so (presumably in much the same way that a stronger man may have the power to take a weaker man’s possessions without a moral right to do so). Have I misunderstood you? Do you in fact merely claim that though we have no right to the assistance of others we nonetheless are morally permitted to put ourselves to sleep (and by a sleep to say we end the thousand heartaches and natural shocks that flesh is heir to)?
Thought experiments are obviously not the basis for public policy but they may illustrate the fundamental rationality or irrationality of philosophical principles on which public policy is ostensibly based. The “Sand Pebbles” scenario for instance (which you dismiss as fanciful) appears to be logically isomorphic (in several major respects) to the Nicklinson case. Tony Nicklinson was captured by a Catastrophic Stroke and is being tortured with the death of a thousand indignities. If you feel the McQueen character “did the right thing” when he ended his friend’s life, it’s hard to see how you can be comfortable with dismissing all such cases out of hand.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 20th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
We don’t have a right, by which I am referring to an authority enforceable at law like freedom of speech. We have the power, as in the ability. Different things in my view. The question for me is what should a community do in the face of a member’s desire to commit suicide. I think it has to be unequivocal prevention and mental health intervention. Not for some, with facilitation for others. But for all.
July 20th, 2010 | 4:11 pm
Those that seek suicide out of despair, once helped out of that despair, find that life is much better than they thought, and are glad they were helped to live. Enable euthanasia, and those people won’t have a chance. This isn’t about rational choices and dignity, it’s about taking advantage of the scared and hurting.The goal is to use ‘hard cases’ to pave the way to state-sanctioned killing of the unknowing and unwilling. Reference that lady in Oregon whose insurance refused life-extending medicine, yet offered to pay for her death.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5517492&page=1
Suicide is a moral evil, assisting a suicide a heinous crime. Legal redefinition will come, but that only proves the moral bankruptcy of the re-definers. The new barbarism is here.
July 20th, 2010 | 5:43 pm
The goal is to use ‘hard cases’ to pave the way to state-sanctioned killing of the unknowing and unwilling.
Whose goal exactly? Who exactly are all these people plotting the deaths of the “unknowing and unwilling”? Has anyone actually seen these embodiments of evil or are they just trotted out as scarecrows to scare the children?
The situation you mention in Oregon was no-one’s intended goal. It’s an unintended consequence of a state of affairs which was brought about for other nobler reasons.
Remember that more than 80% of people in the UK support a legal change in favour of assisted suicide (and thanks to Wesley’s recent trip down under we now know that the numbers are similar there as well). This isn’t some covert operation driven by a vocal minority with a hidden agenda. The “man on the street” honestly thinks this is the right thing to do.
You may argue that the Great British Public is deluded and overly sentimental, that their advocacy will eventually result in Armageddon and the End of the World As We Know It. However you may not argue, at least not with a straight face, that they have their hearts set on the Massacre of the Innocents and that this cataclysm is in fact what they intend.
July 20th, 2010 | 8:07 pm
People who have so called “locked in syndrome”, CAN live productive lives. But this is entirely contingent on having caretakers, who will compassionately, and heroically care for them.
At the risk of getting too technical, locked in syndrown, invoves quadraplegia, but it’s worse. Not only is the person completely paralysed, from the neck down, but, due to this condition arising ing the Pons, which is part of the brainstem, they also cannot speak (due to paralysis of the vocal muscles, and can only look vertically, that is, up and down, due to the paralysis of the ocular muscles that control horizontal, or side to side eye movements. Thus, they’re only communication, with the outside world, is through the vertical eye movements. Therefore, one must devise some intricate “morse code”, if you will, to communicate with them.
But, as is clearly implied, their consciousness is entirely intact, and their sensory system is entirely intact. they’e the most vulnerable of patients, requiring the best in compassion and care.
Usually this condition is a consequence of a stroke, whereby, the basilar artery, that supplies the pons, is obstructed, resulting in loss of blood flow to the neurons that comprise the pons. And since these neurons include all of the ones that control the body below the head, and the oculomotor control of the horizontal eye movements, paralysis results (the neurons don’t get their blood supply, due to the stroke, so they die). However, there are ascending neural tracts, that flow through the posterior (back part0 of the pons, called the reticular activating system, that are not supplied by the basilar artery, and therefore are still completely functional. The reticular activating system, to put it simply, “wake up”, or “stimulate the cerebral cortex (where conscious content resides), allowing the cerebrum to be conscious. (incidently, it’s the reticular activating system that is NOT functional, in individuals suffering with persistent vegetative state. I’m not a doctor, so maybe one can interject here, and provide the inevitably better details.
But these people are as conscious as you and I. Their lives must be awful, no one can deny that. But if they had a kind caretaker, perhaps this talk of suicide would be trown out the window?
July 20th, 2010 | 8:12 pm
Sorry, I made a mistake above. The vocal cords and muscles, are completely paralysed. The eye movements, are partially so. The vertical eye movements are preserved, but the horizontal eye movements are lost. All of this, is a result of the peculiar, and highly complicated anatomy of the pons (and indeed all of the brainstem, which in addition, to thepons, includes the midbrain and medulla.)
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 20th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
That’s helpful Bret. I suspect, but obviously can’t prove, that the media–or the lawyer–used the locked in description to make the request to be killed by spouse seem more “reasonable.” It is a way of making it seem that this isn’t disability. The woman in Belgium who was euthanized and had her organs harvested, which I covered here at SHS, was diagnosed as locked in. Rom Houbens was supposedly locked in, but may be minimally conscious. It is hard to distinguish locked in from persistent unconsciousness. Not the same as full quadriplegia, as you ably pointed out.
By the way, the other point I made–that having a spouse kill you proves euthanasia isn’t “medical,” has not been commented upon even by pro E SHSers. I guess that’s because it is too obvious to try and rebut?
July 20th, 2010 | 8:48 pm
I think you’re right, Wesley. Thanks for the information, and the important work you do.
July 21st, 2010 | 2:55 am
My two cents:
I would imagine that many people who are “pro-Euthanasia” would rather it took place in a medical setting. The argument might well be “euthanasia ought to be a completely medical procedure” rather than an assertion that it is.
I would venture to say that the vast majority of “Euthanasia supporters” (as distinct from the most vocal media activists) would disapprove of a wife (and full time carer) ending her husband’s life in this manner. They might agree that he has a “right to die” but would probably disagree about how precisely to arrange his exit.
July 21st, 2010 | 6:29 am
Wesley, I sincerely hope you never find youself totally paralyzed or in unremitting agony. And if you do find youself in that situation (which is only a blood clot away from us all) I hope your personal hell doesn’t last for twenty years.
But I cannot forgive you for locking other people, like Mr. Nicklinson, in their own hells until their bodies finally fail them.
“Whenever that is brought up, my response is that such extremes are not the basis for public policy.”
Nicklinson is LIVING one of those extremes! Those extremes are EXACTLY what the laws are for!
Have you ever been paralyzed? Do you have any idea what it’s like? The greatest evils in the world are committed by moralists.
July 21st, 2010 | 6:51 am
“That is what I call the Sand Pebbles example. In the movie, Steve McQueen shoots his pal who has been captured by Boxer rebels (as then called) and is being publicly tortured with the death of a thousand cuts. Whenever that is brought up, my response is that such extremes are not the basis for public policy. Just as sometimes a starving man might steal a loaf of bread, that doesn’t mean we legalize theft. Besides, we aren’t talking suicide but ASSISTED suicide. Big difference.”
This has got to be one of the dumbest things I have ever read! If Po-han (the man being tortured to death) wanted to end his torture the only way he could, by dying, then Holman (McQueen’s character) assisted his suicide. If Po-han wanted to live until the torture killed him then Holman murdered him. You would presumably have prosecuted Holmann either way.
Suppose Po-han was in his own bed, in utter unquenchable screaming agony from bone cancer. Or drowning in his own fluids from emphysema. Would you let Holman shoot him then? Where’s your cutoff here? How much torture will you force on Po-han before you allow him to die?
This is not an academic question. Bone cancer and emphysema are real. I’ve seen people die from both and if I’m ever in either situation, I want to be shot! If you want weeks and months of hellish agony for yourself, go ahead, but don’t force it on others!
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 21st, 2010 at 10:13 am
Dave: If someone were in the kind of agony you describe–and you are wrong, even bone cancer pain can usually be controlled, palliative sedation would be a proper medical technique. That isn’t killing. But you are just refusing to deal with the real issues. Extremely few assisted suicides involve pain. They involve existential anguish. The dying screaming in agony scenario is the sales pitch, but not the reality of euthanasia practice. Either we all have a right to be killed if we want to die, or we don’t. That’s the real issue presented. If you accept euthanasia as the ultimate civil liberty, there is no way to restrict it to the few, in untreatable agony, which isn’t how it is working in any event.
July 21st, 2010 | 6:58 am
I just looked Sand Pebbles up on Wikipedia. Po-han does beg to be shot, so McQueen is guilty of assisting a suicide, but I presume you will approve of this since he wasn’t in bed when he begged to die.
July 21st, 2010 | 2:32 pm
In a world where freedom from burdens and pain are the end-alls of life, euthanasia has proven the tiny next step after abortion. The goal I speak of already exists in the Netherlands and Belgium, where killing of the unknowing and unwilling (often called the “weekend clean-up”) is a non-issue because the killers are not prosecuted. Dr. Peter Singer, Dr. Mark Cosyn, Dr. Kevorkian, Dr. Stuart Weisberg and their fellow-travellers are vocal enough without needing me to trot them out.
GIven the depressed world economy, and the huge bolus of population entering elderhood, the abortion-thinned ranks of the young will be eager to get rid of their burdens. Opening the door to them by insisting that it’s all about compassion, is a stroke of evil genius.
I have cerebral palsy, I’ve experienced paralysis and pain, and almost died. I, like millions of other disabled and elder who want to live despite everything, see the cross-hairs coming to bear on us. This fate isn’t some nebulous fear, it’s already here for many. People in Britain, including doctors, are already being threatened with arrest for not allowing euthanasia of elderly patients put on the Liverpool pathway against their own and their family’s will. Les Burke of Britain, alarmed at the thought of being deprived of food and water, even went to the Euro Court of Human Rights. They would not help, referring him back to the British law that he was appealing to them for protection from. The new law, unspoken but understood, is that the politically powerless have the same right to live as the unborn — that is, none.
It’s a simple repeat of history. Hitler killed the disabled and sick before he went on to Jews. If this burden-free world is what you fight for, don’t be surprised if someone else decides you’re a burden before you’re ready to go.
July 22nd, 2010 | 5:51 am
WJS: “even bone cancer pain can usually be controlled”
I’m glad you put that “usually” in there because unless there’s been a big advance in pain control since Christmas day, 2006, that’s pure BS. Have you ever known someone whose cancer had gotten into their bones?
WJS: “The dying screaming in agony scenario is the sales pitch, but not the reality of euthanasia practice.”
“Pain can be controlled” is one of the lies that your side tells.
WJS: “Extremely few assisted suicides involve pain.”
Yes, Mr. Nicklinson has entirely different problems.
From the story: “It left me paralysed below the neck and unable to speak. I need help in almost every aspect of my life.
“I cannot scratch if I itch. I cannot pick my nose if it is blocked and I can only eat if I am fed like a baby – only I won’t grow out of it, unlike a baby.
“I have no privacy or dignity left. I am washed, dressed and put to bed by carers who are, after all, still strangers.
“I am fed up with my life and don’t want to spend the next 20 years or so like this. Am I grateful that the Athens doctors saved my life?
“No, I am not. If I had my time again, and knew then what I know now, I would have not called the ambulance but let nature take its course.”
WJS: “Either we all have a right to be killed if we want to die, or we don’t.”
We all do. His wife talks about that: “”He wants to be able to take his own life at a time that he chooses,” she told the BBC.”
“He just wants the same rights as everyone else. I mean, you or I can go out and commit suicide. He can’t. That right was taken away from him the day he had his stroke.”
Please tell us some more about Steve McQueen. You seem to approve of with what he did. Was his character guilty of murder or assisted suicide? Why is it all right for him, but not others?
In fact, try to justify your opinion for a change instead of just pronouncing it and expecting us to agree.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:25 am
Dave: I have interviewed people whose loved ones’ bone cancer was effectively palliated and interviewed palliative care specialists who have told me story after story of people with bone cancer whose pain was effectively controlled with a combo of morphine and radiation treatments. But you refuse to face the point that assisted suicide isn’t and hasn’t been about pain that can’t be controlled. That is just the sales point. In fact, if you look at the definitions in bills, they make it clear that there is to be no objective measurement of that issue, but is to be whatever the patient says it is, or permitted if the patient doesn’t want pain control. In other words, the patient need not actually be in pain that “can’t be controlled.”
July 22nd, 2010 | 7:39 am
dancingcrane writes: “[assisted suicide/euthanasia is] a simple repeat of history. Hitler killed the disabled and sick before he went on to Jews.”
Wow! Let’s take that a step further. Hitler and the Nazi party also opposed abortion and birth control, just like the Pope (who, in case you’re unaware, happened once upon a time to be a member of the Hitler Youth). The Catholic Church also has an abysmal history of ill-treatment of Jews.
Orthodox Muslims also oppose to abortion and contraception, and lots of them want to destroy Israel.
Conclusion: institutional opposition to abortion and contraception are likely to lead to anti-Semitism. No?
July 23rd, 2010 | 5:09 am
If we were cookie-cutter clones with exactly the same sensitivity to pain, you might have a point. But we’re not and our responses vary all over the place. I guarantee you from personal experience (my aunt’s death) that the only way to stop some people’s pain is to blast them into a coma with morphine – if that works. If the pain is really bad, some people will die before losing consciousness. Unless there’s been a breakthrough since Christmas day 2005, this is still the case.
The reason the bills don’t restrict themselves only to pain is because there are so many other horrible ways to die. I mentioned emphysema and drowning in your own fluids on July 21. Remember water boarding? That’s only pseudo drowning and it’s officially torture. Now think of real drowning, only it’s not temporary, it’s real and you’re paralyzed, as helpless as a man strapped to a board, and you can’t do anything about it except die slowly.
Have you ever had a stroke? I had one in 2001. I was lucky, it affected only the motor area on the left side of my brain and my right arm and leg were only 90% paralyzed. Even luckier, I recovered about 95% of my capability. While I was in the hospital an abused artery shut down completely for a while and suddenly, without any warning, my right arm and leg were totally paralyzed. I can still remember the horrible, claustrophobic feeling of trying to move my arm and nothing happening.
I can’t even make myself think of what it would be like to have everything paralyzed – arms, legs, face – everything but my eyes. Maybe even them. I would rather die ten thousand times than have that happen to me, yet I know from personal experience that it could happen without warning at any moment. And I also know that people like you are fighting hard to make sure that if I or anybody else does have that stroke, we will have to suffer that claustrophobic paralysis for weeks, months or even years before we finally die in claustrophobic misery.
What’s really disgusting about your attitude is that I might not even use it if suicide were available to me. Maybe I’m the kind of person who would be satisfied if I could, say, cruise the web and tap out answers at sites like this by using my breath or eye twitches or something to send one letter at a time. At least until I got a cold and drowned in my own snot. But I want that choice. I want to know that if I can’t hack it or it just gets to be too much to take, I can end it quickly and painlessly But if you have your way nobody will ever have that choice. We’ll all be stuck with whatever hell an uncaring nature puts us in with absolutely no way to stop the torture.
And meanwhile you’ll be sitting there, completely unknowning and feeling satisfied with yourself in your victory.
July 23rd, 2010 | 5:29 am
Make that Christmas 2006. Christmas 2005 was pretty miserable too, but for different reasons.
July 23rd, 2010 | 10:49 am
Dave Mullenix: You make many excellent points, but don’t expect a reasoned response from meddlesome super-zealots. Like most propagandists they’re not beyond twisting the facts when it suits their agenda.
July 26th, 2010 | 4:32 am
HistoryWriter, I don’t think most can help it. Read the book, “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts” by Tavris and Aronson. ($10.20 at Amazon, $7.96 for Kindle)
It’s a fascinating book on such topics as how we get into deep immoral do-do (generally one small step at a time with constant self-justification) and how we warp incoming data to avoid owning up to our mistakes when we find ourselves in deep do-do.
Example: What’s the surest way to get to hate someone? Do him an injustice.
If I ran a school, this book would be required reading, along with “How to Lie with Statistics” by Huff and Geis.
July 27th, 2010 | 9:29 am
Lets take this argument to it’s next logical conclusion. If it is made legal to kill someone at their request, it wont be long before we have people murdering and claiming consent where there was none. Or the more grizzly fact, people “assisting suicide” by means of ball bats and meat cleavers.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 11:27 am
It’s already happened. See my work on George Delury and his smothering of Myrna Lebov, which he originally claimed was a “compassionate” assisted suicide due to MS. In fact, he put her out of HIS misery.
August 2nd, 2010 | 10:45 am
Dear contributors,
I must side with Dave. He is the only one that understands the issue from the side of the sufferer. I am a sufferer of chronic pain, seven years worth, that has become unbearable. I would like to have help to end my life. I feel trapped in a daily exercise of agony that has no foreseeable end. There are the “what ifs” of possible unwanted future outcomes, but they can be dealt with if they happen. What is happening at this very minute is the unknown suffering of many many many people who want nothing else out of life the an end to their pain and suffering. I am one of these people.
I did have a cancer that spread to the bone, my T-4 vertebrae. The cancer compressed my spinal cord and left me paralyzed. No pain killer addressed this pain. Also some of you talk like it is such a good way to live to take high dose pain killers for the rest of your life. Do you know the very unpleasant side effects of these drugs? I also was thankful to the doctors for a number of years for saving my life. But that has passed and now it is unrelenting pain until my body gives out and that could be a number of years. The possibility of this is terrifying and causes a paralyzing mental distress that is as painful as the physical pain. The doctors and hospital were willing to do the procedures that I approved of to save my life, why will they not do the procedures that I approve of to end my life, and the pain and suffering that they acknowledge they are unable to remedy? Intelligent people argue back and forth over the issue but they are not the ones in pain. We have the means to provide a painless end to life, but it is withheld from the people that desire it due to moralising by those who are not in need of it? I just cannot see why this isn’t obvious. It feels to me that no one cares at all about my suffering and out of control pain. I wish I could find some compassion for my situation. For me, I would call that love.
August 2nd, 2010 | 7:16 pm
John,
You wrote that you wanted disabled people to be able to kill themselves “like everyone else”. I want to make this clear. I am physically disabled and fighting severe chronic pain. I am in an electric wheelchair. I can think of many ways to take myself out. There’s not a day that goes by that I DON’T THINK of killing myself. I have use of my hands, John. I have my intellect. That does not ease the physical pain one iota. Nor does it stop the comments of able-bodied people I meet:
“People should thank God they aren’t like you.”
“Unlike able-bodied people with depression, you have a valid reason for killing yourself.”
My own parents betrayed me when they attempted to put me in a nursing home for the rest of my life and against my will. They disowned me for not going along with it. They treated me like dirt for the first 22 years of my life until I got the courage to leave. That resulted in the lion’s share of the emotional pain I live with.
I fight these suicidal thoughts in silence most of the time because I know that if I gave voice to them, a lot of well-meaning people would be lining up to back up my “decision” to die. They don’t see my intellect or my potential when they see me. They see only the wheelchair, and that, for them merits death. The only thing that has helped me is a few loyal friends and antidepressant drugs. Without these, I would be hurting even more. Depression has been a part of my life since I can remember. I hate euthanasia with all my being. And yet I am often tempted to end my own life. I want to turn these thoughts off, but I can’t, not of my own accord.
You know what human rights I want, John? I have a right to be seen as a normal human being. I want to be able to go wherever building I want. I don’t want to see my fellow disabled warriors rotting away in substandard nursing homes for life, because someone believes they are less than human. There is a 70% to 90% unemployment rate for disabled people. I can go on and on. There are many rights that people like me don’t have. Giving the right to die cancels out the rest. Many disabled people don’t need help to die. Some of them are in poor health and need medical care to survive. I hear many stories of disabled people being refused medical treatment to save their lives. I hear of families of newly disabled people being pressured to pull the plug.
One seems to think that disabled people merit death without question, without a trial, without appeal. Even criminals have more rights than we do.
If we say yes to one disabled person’s suicide, where will it stop?
Remember places like Nazi Germany and Sparta, where ALL disabled people were wiped out, whether they wanted to live or not.
As for me, I do not continue to live because I want to suffer. I do have moments of relief but too many times I fight my battles alone. It is very easy for a depressed person to want death, John, even for me.
God help Mr. Nicklinson, because it occurs to no-one that this man might have treatable depression. I expect that something BIG in his recent past has pushed him over the edge, or he would have said something long before this. But all he has in his corner is people who are racing to help him die. Depression can mess with a person big-time. I am not trying to put him down, but there is nothing wrong or shameful in being depressed.
PS people wash and dress me too. I also have a tube in my bladder that is agony to replace. If I decided to die tomorrow, John, would you too, rush to help me die? It would be so easy for me to take myself out, or give explicit pointers to Mr. Nicklinson too. I’ve seen people like him get college degrees. People who couldn’t use their hands.
August 2nd, 2010 | 7:32 pm
I have learned of So many people with chronic pain wanting “out”. And many don’t realize that antidepressants can and do help with the physical pain, as does Omega 3 (DHA) There are also ways around the side-effects of morphine. It’s NOWHERE near an easy battle, but this depression spiked AFTER my pain was under better control.
I have never known of anything more dangerous to mental health than chronic pain.
I expect to be attacked for my viewpoint, but realistically, I cannot stop someone if he is truly bent on suicide. I learned that a long time ago. Neither can WJS.
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