No Wonder Disabled People See Themselves as Assisted Suicide Targets
This story out of the UK speaks volumes about how devalued the lives of disabled people are becoming. Gillian March had progressive multiple sclerosis, a very difficult disease that not only leads to increased disability, but often depression. She decided she wanted to kill herself--so that her husband could go on with his life. She had tried several times before, and on the last occasion, her husband came home and tightened the seal around the plastic bag she had put over her head. He plead guilty to assisting her suicide and received no meaningful punishment.
What struck me about this story is the lack of apparent interest in suicide prevention or treatment for March's depression. Perhaps her doctors had tried. We don't know because curiously, the issue is never raised in the story--creating an (intended?) subtext that seems to proclaim, "Of course she wanted to be dead. Who wouldn't?"
Needless to say the euthanasia crowd supported the tap on the wrist even though Gillian March was not terminally ill. No wonder so many disabled people see themselves in the cross hairs of the euthanasia movement.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 6:54 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
On the blog for conservative philosphers, Right Reason, to which I am a contributor, eminent "conservative" philosopher Roger Scruton advocated pretty much exactly this approach to assisted suicide: It should continue to be formally illegal, but the one assisting should be able to offer as an affirmative defense (I think that's the legal term) that he was acting out of mercy, in accordance with the person's wishes, etc., and then he should not be punished. This makes a joke of the relevant laws that would otherwise punish assisted suicide. Scruton's silly idea was that this would maintain respect for human life by keeping the laws on the books. In fact, when they are not enforced and one can be sure of a tap on the wrist, it does exactly the opposite. We have seen this in the Netherlands with unenforced laws against infanticide. I have written a response to Scruton, posted at Enchiridion Militis, and I'm working on a revised version of it to submit to a new small journal called The Critical that republishes blog posts, sometimes in revised form, in hard copy.
Scruton's piece, "Dying Quietly," is here:
http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2006/05/dying_quietly.html
My response in its blog form is here:
http://www.enchiridion-militis.com/?p=77
I think I will probably include a reference to this case you cite here in my revised version for print submission.
For some reason the comments will not post a URL longer than a certain number of characters. The Scruton post in question ends with
dying_quietly.html
You can see where to put that into the Right Reason URL in my previous comment.
That is what a New York man named George DeLury did with the assisted suicide of his wife Myrna Lebov, who had progressive MS. He was just being the good and loving husband, he insisted, merely giving his wife the death with dignity that she craved. The media ate it up as they always do, and he was embraced by the cultural elite and the euthanasia crowd.
Then, the cops found his diary. And he was found to have pressured her into suicide and complained bitterly that he had fallen prey to oppression of a victim. So, his motive hadn't been so compassionate, after all.
That got him some jail time for his crime. Otherwise, I am sure he would have walked. He later wrote a book, "What If She Wanted to Die?"
Your philosopher should contemplate that, how easy it is to kill and then claim the motive was love. And he should remember that not everyone keeps a diary.
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