I make it a point of not criticizing people who commit suicide. None of us knows what might cause such despair that we decide to terminate ourselves. Indeed, my focus is on how a loving community responds to the suicidal despair of our brothers and sisters, not on judging people who have died.
But I am going to make an exception in this particular story. Over the years, I have noticed an utterly “it’s all about me” orientation among the more doctrinaire assisted suicide types–not people who may support legalization in limited cases (not knowing it is a false premise)–but the committed activists, the kind who pour over stories of assisted suicides, attend how-to-commit-suicide seminars, and get the vapors at suicide machine conventions. Not only are such assisted suicide fanatics disturbed, but often their actions cause great harm, not only to themselves but to society itself, e.g., the Final Exit Network members who helped a mentally ill woman kill herself in Phoenix.
An Arizona murder/suicide “death with dignity” shows what happens when one commits oneself wholeheartedly to ideological hemlock. From the story:
An Arizona couple followed through with a decades-long plan to end their lives before the ravages of old age took their toll. Lansing C. Holden, 83, and his wife, Carol, 78, were found shot to death July 26 in a remote cabin south of Pagosa Springs in Archuleta County. Archuleta County Coroner Carl Macht on Wednesday said the deaths had been classified as a murder-suicide…The Holdens were members of the Final Exit Network, a nonprofit that promotes “the right of every adult to a peaceful, dignified death,” according to its website. Members receive consultations and advice about suicide methods. She wore an orange plastic bracelet that read, “Do not resuscitate” from the Hemlock Society, a national right-to-die organization. Such groups typically recommend less-violent means of death, like a lethal dose of medication, rather than a gunshot…
The Holdens were in fairly good condition considering their age, Macht said. Mr. Holden had the beginnings of heart disease and she had digestive issues…They left behind a suicide note signed by both participants and notarized March 3, 2010, in Arizona. The letter read: “Many years ago we decided to be in charge of the timing of our own death. Hopefully it would be when the lines of normal aging, health problems and finances all crossed. “It is our intention to avoid the indignities of prolonged nursing home care or terminal hospitalization. Unfortunately, there is little chance of ‘death with dignity’ under present laws which do not recognize our right to die a peaceful and painless death at the time and place of our own choosing. “We have concentrated on the quality rather than the quantity of our lives together, and now it is time to move on while we are still in control. We want our bodies to be cremated directly and no religious or memorial services.”
Oh, and get this bit of utter selfishness–making a cleaning woman find their bodies:
The couple e-mailed the homeowner before the shooting and asked that a cleaning lady be sent by. She discovered the bodies July 26 – about a day after they had been shot. “She was really shaken up,” Macht said.
This is no different than the double 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 example, lauds suicide as a prophylactic against future suffering. And indeed, it is just like the suicide of my friend Frances, who killed herself o her 76th birthday under the influence of Hemlock Society literature–which is what dragged me into this field of advocacy in the first place. Here’s what I wrote about that pointless death in my first anti assisted suicide piece in Newsweek, published June 28, 1993. From my column, “The Whispers of Strangers:”
Frances once told me that through her death she would be advancing a cause. It is a cause I now deeply despise. Not only did it take Frances, but it rejects all that I hold sacred and true: that the preservation of human life is our highest moral ideal; that a principal purpose of government is as a protector of life; that those who fight to stay alive in the face of terminal disease are powerful uplifters of the human experience.
Of greater concern to me is the moral trickledown effect that could result should society ever come to agree with Frances. Life is action and reaction, the proverbial pebble thrown into the pond. We don’t get to the Brave New World in one giant leap. Rather, the descent to depravity is reached by small steps. First, suicide is promoted as a virtue. Vulnerable people like Frances become early casualties. Then follows mercy killing of the terminally ill. From there, it’s a hop, skip and a jump to killing people who don’t have a good “quality” of life, perhaps with the prospect of organ harvesting thrown in as a plum to society.
And that is precisely what is happening.
This couple didn’t just kill themselves, they did it in a way to create a public controversy. That means we have a right to comment about what they did and what they believed. They didn’t just devastate their family, they hurt society. That makes what they did triply wrong.
August 5th, 2010 | 11:57 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Stand In The Gap, Wesley J. Smith. Wesley J. Smith said: The Selfishness of Assisted Suicide Ideology–Murder/Suicide » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog http://shar.es/0aeVo [...]
August 5th, 2010 | 12:04 pm
[...] First Things (blog) [...]
August 5th, 2010 | 12:24 pm
I noticed the language in the suicide note about wanting to be in control. This seems to be a common theme. So much of the desire to have a death with dignity is really a desire to be in control. We, as human beings, desperately want to be in control and nothing makes us face the fact that ultimately we aren’t in control more than disease and death. I’m not just speaking as an academic, but also someone who helped care for my mother-in-law with cancer and had two loved ones die in a plane crash this past year. Disease and death make us confront what we don’t want to admit…that we just can’t control everything. Legalized suicide doesn’t solve this. It’s just a false sense of control.
August 5th, 2010 | 1:05 pm
[...] The Durango Herald: “An Arizona couple followed through with a decades-long plan to end their lives before the ravages of old age took their toll. Lansing C. Holden, 83, and his wife, Carol, 78, were found shot to death July 26 in a remote cabin south of Pagosa Springs in Archuleta County . . . The Holdens were members of the Final Exit Network, a nonprofit that promotes ‘the right of every adult to a peaceful, dignified death,’ according to its website. Members receive consultations and advice about suicide methods.” | Via Wesley J. Smith at First Things / Secondhand Smoke [...]
August 5th, 2010 | 2:30 pm
Gee, I always like reading stuff that starts off with “I don’t believe in [insert whatever here], BUT ….”
I wouldn’t think of criticizing anybody, BUT this time I think I will.
Why, these benighted folks weren’t even terminally ill. Heck, they could have had another decade of suffering before nature took its course, and as we all know suffering is ennobling while avoiding it is cowardly and selfish. And with a gun, too. Yuck, what a mess! But, I guess that’s what we can expect more of here in the US of A, where busybodies and assorted religious zealots have taken it upon themselves to interfere with people’s ability to accomplish their aims less messily with a simple Rx from the corner pharmacy. What was that the NRA used to say about “…from my cold dead hands…”?
How could anybody do such a thing? They upset the cleaning woman, and we all know how hard it is to get good household help nowadays. Shame on them!
August 5th, 2010 | 3:51 pm
HW:
You do realize you don’t win anyone to your side with your sarcastic comments, don’t you?
All your commentary ever does is confirm my own experience of assisted-suicide advocates as inhumanly cold and control-freaky.
August 5th, 2010 | 5:18 pm
I think that the “in control” bit is the very crux of the issue. People who support assisted suicide/euthanasia often like to paint their opponents as people who have a morbid fear of death. But, this is not true. It is THEY who have a morbid fear of death,because they fear the dying process and the dependency it involves. This accounts for this movement’s hatred of handicapped people-we have to accept a certain amount of dependency in our everyday lives, and disabled people remind them of that.
August 5th, 2010 | 5:20 pm
“How could anybody do such a thing? They upset the cleaning woman, and we all know how hard it is to get good household help nowadays. Shame on them!”
HW, you really are a trip. It is no trivial matter to walk into a room and find two bloodied corpses. Can you imagine the trauma and nightmares this woman might experience? What right did they have to involve her in their decision? Why couldn’t they send the police an email instead instead of involving an innocent person?
August 5th, 2010 | 5:28 pm
I completely disagree with the notion that assisted suicide/euthanasia, or even the right-to-die, in general, is selfish. Obviously, if one kills themselves, directly to hurt someone else in an “I’ll show them” mentality, perhaps that is a different situation then. However, the FEN has a policy of not being present with people at their exits, in Arizona and in Georgia, while the impending legal cases exist. This couple obviously felt that they didn’t want to live. That is their right, not ours to judge. We may not like the style in which they killed themselves. However, if this society wishes to prevent people from peaceful means of dying, then incidents like this will continue to occur. I do believe that better life care options and support, ought to be given, in order for people to live more comfortably. Yet, everyone’s right-to-die, ought to be respected also, and peaceful means must be available, so that gruesome deaths, such as this, can be prevented.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 5th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Arysyn: Please. You write as if suicide is a necessity. It isn’t And I didn’t say that anyone who has assisted suicide is selfish. I said this kind of advocacy is selfish. Indeed, it endangers people with a tenuous attachment to life.
August 5th, 2010 | 9:24 pm
I think that very often thoughts of suicide are selfish. Anecdotally (and Wesley can see to what extent his experience confirms this) the sense that others are dependent on a person and the acceptance of that dependence decreases thoughts of suicide. One accepts responsibility for one’s own life, because one is responsible for others. Selfishness becomes an unaffordable luxury.
August 6th, 2010 | 1:11 am
[...] First Things (blog) [...]
August 6th, 2010 | 4:54 am
Wesley,
Neither did I say nor intend to say that suicide is a necessity. However, it is a right for people, as an option, if they truly feel that they don’t want to continue living here in this world. I also mentioned before, and I’ll mention it again, that there also should be better life care and support options for people too, as an alternative to suicide. However, nothing should ever be forced upon anyone, as it should all be a choice for people.
August 6th, 2010 | 9:57 am
Safepres: I’m serious. Just try and get good (not to mention legal) housekeepers nowadays. I’d never do anything that cruel to mine. Of course they probably had other things on their minds but still, that’s no reason to be inconsiderate.
August 6th, 2010 | 10:10 am
Kathleen Lundquist: Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not out to “win anyone to my side,” realizing that in a forum populated largely by well-meaning but misguided busybodies and religious zealots that’s a near impossibility. Instead I simply comment about the material with which Wesley promotes his brand of “ethics.”
August 6th, 2010 | 10:59 am
[Irrelevant assertion deleted--Iraq is irrelevant and we don't talk about it here. I am close to just deleting some of your posts, David.]
But, suicide is selfish, plain and simple. If someone does not feel fit for this life due some complicated (and perhaps adjustable) psychology, it’s my job to stand my moral ground and label them selfish should they opt out of a life they had no choice in beginning – it absolves me any guilt and makes me superior – I’m living, therefore, I’m not selfish. Because I’m morally superior, and living, I have every right to judge – they’re dead; off to hell (literally) with their opinion and defense. I win.
How brilliant.
August 6th, 2010 | 10:12 pm
Also, why couldn’t they do it in their own freaking house? Why did they have to do it in a house that someone else owned?
Normally, like Wesley, I would not criticize someone who commits suicide, but these people clearly did this to make a point and didn’t care about who else it impacted.
August 7th, 2010 | 9:18 am
Safepres: The article isn’t specific about it, but for all we know the couple didn’t own a house of their own and were renting/leasing the one in which they died. Not everybody owns their own home, you know. Summoning a cleaning woman might well have been done out of consideration for the landlord rather than for purposes of shocking the cleaning woman. Still, it was inconsiderate; they SHOULD have considered the impact on her of finding a couple of dead bodies (and probably a large mess as well).
But then, folks on this website have been arguing all along that suicide is irrational. Considering that there are plenty of inconsiderate people out there who are perfectly rational, why should we expect IRrational people to act with consideration? I mean, it would be nice, but it’s just wishful thinking.
August 7th, 2010 | 8:13 pm
It’s a sad story. However, in my opinion everybody has the right to terminate his/her own life at that age. The problem is that people tend to identify themselves with all things happening in the outside world. Instead at looking at that what happens in a neutral way, they identify. People even identify with their own bodies… So, that couple didn’t they hurt society at all, unless in our imagination. Isn’t it time to open our eyes and wake up?
August 7th, 2010 | 10:38 pm
“Isn’t it time to open our eyes and wake up?”
I assure you, I’m wide awake. Assisted suicide and euthanasia subvert the rights of the handicapped, invert compassion, and show a callus disregard for human suffering. We need to address the kind of physical and emotional pain that drives people to suicide by improving their situation IN LIFE.
August 21st, 2010 | 11:18 am
I get that many people think assisted suicide is selfish. Some even think that people should just accept the loss of control that comes with dying.
What I don’t see is people suggesting any solutions for helping the suffering. A dying person fears loss of control (e.g. of bowel, bladder, independence). Yet, when measures are suggested for increasing control (e.g. having conversations with one’s doctor about end of life care), the collective response is often, “OMG! DEATH PANELS!!!”
Why the disconnect? Is it money? We want dying people not to commit suicide, but we don’t want to spend the money necessary to give them a meaningful existence at the end?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 21st, 2010 at 11:37 am
Oh, baloney, Dr. Dredd. Nobody opposes discussions about medical issues. Talk about two dimensional thinking.
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