I have been repeatedly asked my views about the Final Exit Network advocacy billboards that push assisted suicide. I was going to post on it, but I was interviewed by Fox News Network on the issue, and I think my comments to Fox’s reporter will suffice. From the story:
A national right-to-die organization has launched a controversial billboard campaign to inform terminally ill and elderly adults that they have a right to end their own lives — but critics say the group is simply preying on vulnerable senior citizens and mentally unstable people.
Well, FEN has never advocated restricting assisted suicide to the terminally ill. Moreover, they have assisted suicides of people who were not dying–a point I made abundantly clear:
But others say Final Exit’s mission is unethical … and illegal. “The signs communicate a pro-suicide message that sends a dangerous message throughout society, including to people like the young who would not legally qualify for a lethal prescription,” said Wesley J. Smith, a California-based bioethicist who opposes assisted suicide. “I think they are trying to make themselves seem like an advocacy group rather than one in which some of its members engage in criminal suicide facilitation,” he said.
The story details allegations and pleas of FEN activists assisting suicides of people who clearly were not dying–which I covered here when it happened:
But Final Exit members, including Egbert, also are alleged to have been involved in the 2007 death of an Arizona woman, Jana Van Voorhis, who suffered from a serious mental illness, not a debilitating physical illness. Wye Hale-Rowe, then 79, and retired college professor Frank Langsner, who provided her guidance, as well as two other senior Final Exit officials — Egbert and Roberta Massey — were charged in the case that will go to trial next month. Hale-Rowe pleaded guilty in January to facilitation to commit manslaughter, a felony. She struck a plea deal with county prosecutors and agreed to testify against the three remaining defendants in the case…
Smith says the Voorhis case “shattered” the “pretense that the minions who participate in the Final Exit Network are mere counselors — rather than mobile assisted suicide clinics.”…Smith questions Final Exit’s judgment of “suffering” individuals and asks people to “take the time to look beneath the political posturing and the true agenda — death on demand for people with more than a transitory desire to die — comes clearly into focus.” “I think it is worth pointing out that the logic of these ideologues is impeccable. Once you accept the belief that killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering, assisting the suicides of the mentally ill — whose suffering is often far worse than those with physical illnesses — can become compelling,” he said.
Proof of my points are found in the last paragraph from an “alternative” suicide counselor–who is clearly pro suicide–wants people to be able to choose not to burden others by being made dead:
But Carolanne Cortese Barton of Alternate Group Counseling in Bayonne, N.J., says she sees the logic behind the billboard campaign, “because in life everyone has a choice, this really is all we have.” “Family traditions have changed and children are no longer able to take their elderly parents into their homes for care anymore and therefore have to send them to nursing homes,” Barton said. She said the billboards create awareness that there are options out there for people who are suffering and do not want their families to suffer further by paying for treatment and care.
Wow. Honesty. How unusual in the drive to legalize assisted suicide. Whether she is right is the debate we should be having.
July 21st, 2010 | 3:16 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys and Stand In The Gap, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: Final Exit Network Billboards: Trying to Take Spotlight Off Group’s Criminality Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog http://shar.es/mVVUx [...]
July 21st, 2010 | 3:45 pm
[...] Final Exit Network Billboards: Trying to Take Spotlight Off Group's CriminalityFirst Things (blog)I have been repeatedly asked my views about the Final Exit Network advocacy billboards that push assisted suicide. I was going to post on it, …'Final Exit' Billboards Promote 'Right to Die'Christian Broadcasting NetworkYour life, your choice, your death?CNN (blog)Euthanasia Billboards, Books Fight for Death on Your Own TermsABC NewsSodaHead News -allvoicesall 9 news articles » [...]
July 21st, 2010 | 8:27 pm
When is fox going to air the interview/story?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 21st, 2010 at 8:31 pm
It was print. I did it from Australia from my Black Berry.
July 22nd, 2010 | 12:07 am
I think you might be interested in what this guy says Mr. Smith.
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html
I just watched this for a second time and it has lots of little snippets of information that are for the most part helpful. Watch the whole thing. toward the end he talks about the technology of the self-help group being freed from its institutional frame work and its positives and negatives.
I bring this up because I now realize that Final Exit is one of this groups like the Pro group he mentions, which I had never heard of before. Very sad in both cases. On a more encouraging note, he thinks young mothers are going to be the powerhouses and drivers of social media.
July 22nd, 2010 | 9:44 am
>>children are no longer able to take their elderly parents into their homes for care anymore>>
This is an interesting statement. We have – for the most part – larger houses than people used to have. We have fewer children.
So…why are children no longer able to care for their elderly parents?
July 22nd, 2010 | 1:27 pm
SueK, you ask why children are no longer able to care for their elderly parents. I speak as a man who was caregiver to his late mother and stepfather and left work to do so.
Some of this is economic, which is understandable. Many people are struggling in this economy and must work long hours; they don’t have the time or energy to be a caregiver and certainly cannot afford to leave work. But for most of the rest it boils down to simple selfishness. They simply can’t be bothered. We see the results of the “me–me–me–me” attitude every day in terms of sheer lack of respect and caring toward others, including family members.
That said, it has long been the pattern that one child takes on caregiving the elderly parents while the other children do little or nothing to help. That was my situation, but it is nothing new. Of course, after the parents pass on, those other adult children have no problem coming out of the woodwork to get their share of the estate. This is one area in which I think laws governing wills and estates need to be reformed—to favor the caregiver. Let the kids fight over the privilege of caring for Mom and Dad to get their inheritance, instead of successfully shirking that duty and still being able to profit from the estate.
July 23rd, 2010 | 9:58 am
You raise some valid issues:
>>Many people are struggling in this economy and must work long hours;>>
Granted – but “this economy” has really only been a factor in the last few years – 10 at the very most. The situation we’re discussing has been around much longer than that.
>>This is one area in which I think laws governing wills and estates need to be reformed—to favor the caregiver.>>
In fact, the law tends to punish the caregiver, since the siblings are likely to go to court claiming “undue influence”. I’m afraid this will always be a problem – I don’t think there’s a way to address various concepts of Christian duty, fairness and greed with the law.
In general – I agree with you. The problem lies with an increase of importance of self, and a reduction in recognition of Christian duty and family. In other words, we’re losing our moral center.
July 24th, 2010 | 7:50 am
I see no difference between C&S working to avoid being characterized as “murderers” by some zealots and, say, Operation Rescue scrambling to avoid being characterized as “inciters to murder” by other zealots following the shooting of Dr. Tiller.
PR is PR.
July 27th, 2010 | 7:09 pm
I think i am pretty close to hearing i have cancer and if that is the case and its pretty far along i will do what i think needs to be done to save money for my family and avoid dieing in agony by the hands of the medical community. It will be my choice and mine alone, call me selfish when i am gone the healing begins for my family watching a loved one suffer for years and then dieing is not something i think i want them to endure. Plus is a big waste of money use the money on a younger person
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 27th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
len: I truly hope the feared diagnisis does not come to pass, and that if it does, you have many treatment options. But your letter is precisely why assisted suicide should NOT be legalized. Your worst fears need never come to pass. Cancer pain is very treatable, I trust your family would not consider you a burden, and these terrible fears and the sense of despair can be overcome. My dad died of cancer, pain free. I have seen it in my work as a hospice volunteer. I have watched as loved people were embraced by friends and family as they faced a serious illness. There can be beautiful light on the other side of your present emotional circumstance.
I co-authored a book with a brilliant oncologist and pain control expert called Power Over Pain that could give you a lot of information and, I believe greatly ease your mind. In reality, I translated it out of his medicaleze. If you will send me your name and address via private e-mail, I will send you a copy at my expense. Just hit the link to e-mail me on the blog.
I hope I hear from you…And thanks for taking the time to share a real life perspective on these very crucial issues.
August 3rd, 2010 | 11:23 am
This begs the question “Who’s life is it anyway?” Until people come to the realization that life is granted by God and not some “chance”, these types of “initiatives” will continue to crop up and we will continue down the slope of de-valuing human life AS A WHOLE!
August 4th, 2010 | 1:12 am
Wes,
When I saw the reference to “Egbert” in the third boldfaced excerpt above, I immediately wondered whether this could be the same Dr. Larry Egbert I’d met in 1984 at an anti-nuclear protest in Texas. So I poked around online and, sure enough, same guy. (This article was the clincher, since it contained enough details about him for me to identify him conclusively: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/03/14/the-new-doctor-death.html)
I only met the guy two times, both of them 26 years ago, yet he made such a horrible impression on me that I’ve never forgotten his name, face or voice. At the time, I was a deluded leftist extremely active in the peace/nuclear-freeze/disarmament movement. Several hundred of us were assembled for three days outside the Pantex nuclear weapons assembly plant near Amarillo, TX.
I say I was a leftist, but I was an anomaly because I was also fervently pro-life, as I always have been. Sometime during that weekend, I saw this nice-looking middle-aged man wearing a hat that had all kinds of activist buttons on it including one that was pro-abortion. I immediately struck up a conversation with him, asking what on earth was he doing here at this event that was all about nonviolence wearing a button that advocated lethal violence against the most innocent, defenseless people of all?
He introduced himself as Dr. Larry Egbert and boasted to me, with a smile on his face, that he had actually performed abortions and would do so again if the occasion arose. He had this condescending, elitist air about him–you could tell he considered himself one of the “enlightened ones,” as he talked down to me, trying to make me feel like I was some kind of benighted primitive for even thinking about denying a woman the choice to do what she thought best with her own body.
I told him that the baby should have some choice about his or her own body, and that we had no right to choose death for him or her. He just beamed condescendingly on me, and said some stupid fluff about wasn’t it great that people like us with our different opinions could come together in the peace movement, and wasn’t it great that we could all be tolerant and respect each other’s opinions, as he respected mine, and that we could all agree to disagree and be a model for the rest of the world about tolerating differences and co-existing peacefully, blah blah blah….
I detested him then, I detest him even more now. I can’t say I’m surprised that someone who would boast, so coolly and calmly and happily, about killing babies would end up someday as what Newsweek calls “the new Doctor Death.” Larry Egbert is the most dangerous kind of person: someone who cloaks contempt for human life with a facade of “kindliness” and “caring.” Here’s a little quote from the Newsweek article I linked to, above, that really sums up the unctuous superciliousness of the man I met:
“He has been lauded for his work with Doctors Without Borders in Kosovo, Lebanon, and Sri Lanka. Egbert seems to revel in the accolades it generates. Many of his anecdotes about his career end with people applauding him, praising his righteousness, or saluting his pluck. ‘I get called a saint every now and then,’ he says. He admits, ‘I have a pretty big ego.’”
That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Ego. Pride. The reason Eve and Adam ate the apple: Pride.
Why Lucifer rebelled against God: Pride.
Oh, and by the way, Doctors Without Borders provides, among other things, abortions.
August 4th, 2010 | 11:09 am
I am a Christian, yet I find myself favoring in both areas on this issue. Allow me to explain; While I in no way condone this group, I myself would not want to continue to live if after say a serious accident, I am either going to be bed ridden for the rest of my life or so seriously disfigured, that I in no way shape or form can function in a normal life. Having seen my Grandmother deal with Alzheimer’s, I can imagine the suffering one goes through as they realize that they are slowly losing total control of their mental capacity to deal with life, eventually winding up forgetting how to breath. This was a slow torture that took over 9 yrs for my Grandmother to succumb to. Do we consider what goes through their mind as they are going through this, until they finally reach the point where they have no mind left? I have to ask in this case who is being more selfish, the one who wants to die, or the family members unwilling to let go because they are not able to deal with loss. Remember the woman in Florida (I think it was 6yrs ago) who was a vegetable after a serious accident who’s husband wanted to disconnect her from life support? She had been on that support for well over a year and no change. The parents were not willing to let go and were forcing the husband to deal with the emotional and financial aspect of this, and also that of the children seeing their mother in a state that would never change. It is in these cases, we need to be willing to let go and let God. Take them off of support, and if it is God’s will for them to live, then he will sustain their life.
So much of what is happening in this country, not just in this, but every other aspect of life is what happens when God is taken out of the equation.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Don: Refusing life sustaining treatment is not assisted suicide. One allows nature to take its course, the other is killing.
August 4th, 2010 | 1:51 pm
Don,
If you are thinking of Terri Schindler Schiavo, she was NOT a “vegetable.” She was misdiagnosed as being in “persistent vegetative state,” even though she was responsive to family members, vocalized her feelings, and laughed at her dad’s jokes. Before her husband ordered her speech therapy terminated, Terri had been re-learning how to talk and could say words. There is, along with copious personal testimonies by family members and nurses, video documentation of how NOT “vegetal” Terri was. (http://www.terrisfight.org/pages.php?page_id=52)
Also, the term “persistent vegetative state” itself has been shown to be a misnomer. It was coined by a pro-euthanasia activist, and is medically inaccurate. The more proper term, which is being used more often now, is “locked-in syndrome,” because the person is actually conscious but is “locked-in” in the sense of being unable to communicate. Some of these “locked-in” people look nearly dead, but are far from it; they are conscious of every little thing, as you will see if you watch the video clip of Kate Adamson at the link above.
Regarding people in comas and with locked-in syndrome, there is a very good memoir called “Conversations with the Voiceless” by John Wessells, a man who ministers to comatose and head-injury patients. He has some AMAZING stories to tell. Suffice it to say that there is a lot we don’t know about human consciousness, and what really goes on in the minds of those who seem to be “out of it.”
(http://books.google.com/books?id=NoZ9_DN1__sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=conversations+with+the+voiceless&hl=en&ei=1LFZTMjFMs2knQfZtpnRCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)
After reading this book–which I could hardly put down, by the way, because the man is such a great story-teller–I realized that the human mind is a very mysterious thing, and that extreme humility is appropriate for all of us when we’re tempted to judge what’s really going on in anyone else’s consciousness.
I don’t mean to sound callous–I, too have seen many people, including family members and friends, suffer through Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, debilitating strokes, a rare degenerative autoimmune disease, lupus, multiple sclerosis and terminal cancer–it is very, very hard to watch–and especially agonizing when someone who has been sweet-spirited, kind and gentle all their lives undergoes a radical personality change caused by Alzheimer’s and becomes hostile, combative and verbally abusive to those around them. So I’m certainly not unsympathetic. I am genuinely sorry you had to watch your grandmother go through such an ordeal.
Still, I just think that if we take into our own human, fallible hands the power to decide who shall live and who shall die and when and how, we ourselves will lose our human dignity and become monsters.
August 20th, 2010 | 9:58 am
Len, I pray that the diagnosis is not what you imagine, that you will have many more years to enjoy your life and those you love.
Both of my parents are gone now. Both had much suffering as they passed their final years. My sisters and I were able to care for them during that time with the assistance of caregivers, although it was difficult and painful for us to watch and very tiring physically and emotionally.
While my sisters and I would have preferred that our parents not suffer, pain and suffering is a part of life. When my last years come, I pray that I will have the courage which my parents possessed to face the time with faith and dignity.
In our parents final years, each one of us learned what amazing people our parents truly were. And each one of us was able to give back to our parents a little of what they gave to us. I would not trade those years for all the great ones we had with them. And I think our parents had the pleasure of knowing that much of the love which was given to their children was returned to them.
For all those who leave their parents languishing in nursing homes, you are missing some of the best years of your and their lives.
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