The USA and much of the West are growing increasingly pro suicide. We see it in advocacy for legalizing assisted suicide for the sick. We see it in the number of how-to-commit suicide books that are sold and in the media’s embrace of ghouls such as Jack Kevorkian. Some of the more candid suicide advocates, such as Philip Nitschke promote suicide as a splendid method for anyone who wants to die, including “troubled teens.”
Meanwhile, as I wrote about here, there has been at least one joint assisted suicide at the Dignitas suicide clinic in Switzerland. When a couple planned their own joint suicide to avoid the pain of widowhood, Ruth von Fuchs, a Canadian assisted suicide activist, supported the plan as a good prophylactic against future suffering caused by grief, (as quoted in my blog entry on the Von Fuchs interview about the plan):
Von Fuchs: I think she’s [the healthy wife] ahead of her time, in a way. So, she’s trying to lead her society into questioning some of the old assumptions that life is a duty, that we must not anticipate, that we must start to suffer. But we don’t take that attitude in other areas of life. We think it’s very wise to do things like buckling up your seat belt to prevent being thrown from your car. Prophylactic measures are considered very sensible in many areas of life.
And now, in Wisconsin, a healthy man committed suicide along with his ill wife precisely along the Van Fuchs prophylactic against the pain of grief approach. From the story:
Dr. Daniel and Katherine Gute committed suicide on Sunday.The couple’s deaths may have stunned the community, but not the family.Their doctor said he’s been talking to the couple about planning their deaths for more than a decade, and that in their deaths, they hoped to spark conversation.”This is not a surprise to me; I just didn’t know when,” family friend Dr. Bruce Wilson said.Sunday night, Wilson got the call he’d waited for for years, he said. Dan and Kitty Gute were dead.”Dr. Gute was a retired urologist and a sailor, and Mrs. Gute was an avid tennis player and a championship golfer,” Wilson said.
Wilson is an old family friend and was the couple’s heart doctor. He said Dan Gute was retired, relatively healthy, and about to turn 80, but his wife, Kitty, was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.”And then you’ve got a relatively healthy husband left behind who was very much in love with his wife and did not want to live the rest of his life without her,” Wilson said. “He discussed this at great length with all three of his daughters, and their families and his grandchildren over a period of years,” Wilson said. But many of the Gutes’ friends were unaware.”It’s not something they were very open about because of their concern it would be too disturbing to people because our culture, it seems, has not been ready for this,” Wilson said.
Nor should we ever be! Nobody wants to be widowed, but are we going to start supporting the suicides of spouses to avoid that sad reality of life? Good grief!
By the way, the helium method used by the couple is the primary one taught by Derek Humphry and utilized by the Final Exit Network, and so in my mind, they bear a moral responsibility for these deaths:
According to the medical examiner’s report, one of the Gutes’ daughters found the couple dead in their car in the garage of their River Hills home. They were surrounded by helium tanks, tubes and plastic garbage bags. Wilson said the family was not surprised.
I see this as a tragedy. That many don’t illustrates vividly that we are becoming a pro suicide society. Indeed, how can it be denied? Culture of death, Wesley? What culture of death?
July 22nd, 2010 | 2:25 pm
[...] First Things (blog) [...]
July 22nd, 2010 | 3:04 pm
A tragedy? So now the great Wesley presumes to tell us how grief-stricken we are allowed to be, (“…are we going to start supporting the suicides of spouses to avoid that sad reality of life?”) and how, and to what extent, the death of a beloved spouse should or should not affect us. And this from a man who rails against the “Nanny State.”
In WesleyWorld, you see, it’s OK for our fearless leader to tell the lemmings exactly how they should think, feel and act when they’re grieving. Worse, instead of laughing him off stage for minding other people’s business — they actually listen. Now THERE’S a tragedy for you.
July 22nd, 2010 | 3:05 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, Stand In The Gap and Anne A. Johnson, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: Suicide Nation: Joint Deaths Illustrates Our Emerging Pro Suicide Society » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog http://shar.es/mPCah [...]
July 22nd, 2010 | 9:11 pm
Dear History Writer,
I wonder if you would re-examine your interpretation of, and response to, Wesley’s quote “…are we going to start supporting the suicides of spouses to avoid that sad reality of life?”
What is the substantive connection between your statement regarding the level of expressed grief and Wesley’s quote? I find no connection and look forward to your explanation.
Is joint assisted suicide a tragedy? Yes it is… for as many reasons as “single” assisted suicides are tragic…but duos-o’-death are especially tragic since the unique and faux-romantic nature of the double-body-count concept/action gives pro-assisted suicide organizations “double the fodder” for their Orwellian double-speak-laden, unscrupulous, manipulative marketing campaigns.
If we follow the illogic stated in support of the grief argument in Dr. & Mrs. Gutt’s ASx2 (double assisted suicide), it is both logical and necessary to ask what level of grief might be set as a minimum standard for such action.
• a person grieves the death of a beloved pet?
• a person grieves the limitation of a credit card – the limitation stops their ability to get the items or experiences they want?
• a person grieves because of they become lactose intolerant and can no longer dine, for instance, on cream-based soups and ice cream for dessert?
Get a grip, History Writer. Grief is part of life. And here’s the point: IT IS NOT THE ONLY PART.
What has come, and continues to come, from assisted suicide mongers is the selling of abject fear. I strongly suggest you and a host of others are buying the commodity of abject fear in wholesale, mega-proportions.
Seriously, History Writer, I really hope you stop shopping at the AS store. You’re as manipulated and used as marketing “fear fodder” as those dear souls who committed assisted suicide.
Oh…A suggestion for you: The crux of credible public discussion – and the responsibility of those involved – is to offer the utmost respect to others. Thank you for putting the name calling antics on the shelf…we expect the best behavior here – and we know you have it to give.
Cheers! ###
July 23rd, 2010 | 2:19 am
This double assisted suicide is simply the logical outcome after
1. People reject the sanctity of life
2. Life objectively has no meaning
3. The constructed meaning to life is to eliminate suffering
If people cannot find an antidote for this, they truly are lost.
July 23rd, 2010 | 7:18 am
UMHJC: The meaning of my comment should be obvious to anyone who can read.
July 23rd, 2010 | 12:47 pm
Sounds like Suttee, the discredited traditional practice in India where the widowed wife throws herself onto the dead husband’s funeral pyre. Some people consider this anti-woman, as the practice reflected the low status of women, particularly widows, who had no rights. I’m sorry to hear this kind of thinking is cropping up in Switzerland.
July 24th, 2010 | 7:45 am
Jane: Suttee was “discredited” not by the Indians, but by the British, who imposed their own moral system upon India during its occupation. The underlying attitude is best captured in Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden.” Whether Kipling was being serious or satirical, he certainly can’t be accused of having exaggerated.
It doesn’t require a very hard look to see a parallel between the condescending attitude of imperial England and the condescending attitude of the anti-choice crowd.
July 24th, 2010 | 1:57 pm
When my nephew died at age 13, my sister experienced a grief that I hope I never do. Did she hop onto his casket and wail to be buried with him? She did not. She bore her grief fiercely and waded through it with a fortitude she never believed she possessed. Today, five years on, she is alive. She rejoices in the lives of her 3 living children, their spouses, and her hoped for grandchildren. Her family, including her children and her seven siblings, as well as many friends, are the richer for her continued existence. The loss of my nephew was a terrible tragedy, but had my sister sought to avoid her own grief by killing herself….well, it is infinite, the ongoing grief and loss that act would have caused. We help each other to bear the burden of grief…we don’t, humanely, just erase one another.
July 24th, 2010 | 4:48 pm
(So History Writer supports suttee and sees its elimination by the British as an act of cultural imperialism? Figures.)
One thing that struck me immediately about this story was this: If the wife was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, to what extent was she even competent to give rational consent to her death? Once again, we see that the whole question of choice becomes moot when push comes to shove.
July 26th, 2010 | 6:49 am
Lydia: it seems obvious from the article that the planning was done some time in advance, and that the wife and husband had made an agreement to do exactly what they did. It’s entirely possible that you have never loved anyone enough to be that distraught over their loss, but such are the differences that make life (and death) interesting.
I don’t support suttee, as you allege. I merely criticized Jane’s characterization of it as “discredited,” which implied that the Indians had come to some realization about it themselves rather than having had their religious beliefs suppressed by their occupiers. It’s a distinction perhaps a bit too subtle for you to appreciate but a distinction nevertheless, and a distinction WITH a difference.
August 5th, 2010 | 11:43 am
[...] assisted suicide committed at Dignitas in Switzerland (more planned), or the recent well publicized double suicide in Wisconsin. And it is fully in keeping with Canadian assisted suicide advocate Ruth Von Fuchs who, for [...]
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