Derek Humphry is Right: Assisted Suicide is Assisted Suicide
Derek Humphry is the co-founder with his late former wife Ann Wickett, of the Hemlock Society. Humphry is a suicide ideologue, author of the how-to-commit-suicide guide Final Exit, who is utterly indifferent that his book has been found next to the bodies of teenage suicide victims.
But Humphry is not mealy-mouthed. He doesn't try to hide his agenda behind mealy-mouthed euphemisms such as "death with dignity" or "aid in dying." In this regard, he had this letter published in today's Register Guard:
"As the author of four books on the right to choose to die, including "Final Exit," I find the vacillation by the Department of Human Services (Register-Guard, Oct. 23) on how to describe the lawful act of a physician helping a terminally ill person to die by handing them a lethal overdose, which they can choose to drink (or not), an affront to the English language.
"'Physician' means a licensed M.D.; 'assisted' means helping; and 'suicide'means deliberately ending life.
"The department's cop-out choice of the words "death with dignity" is wildly ambiguous and means anything you want. Let's stick to the English language and in this matter call a spade a spade.
DEREK HUMPHRY"
Indeed.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:14 AM
1 Comments
1 Comments:
I don't really see where "torturer" and "slaver" come in to play here, because if you break down Mr. Smith's ideology, nothing approaching slavery or torture come up - he respects every individual human as unique and worthwhile, rather than, as Plato did, dismissing the masses as nothing more than sheep to be sheared when the Intelligencia wanted.
As for being intellectually dishonest, most patients who ask for assisted suicide suffer from severe depression due to their conditions, and the desire to die diminishes when the depression is treated. Speaking as someone who is clinically depressed, and for a while suicidal, I was very happy when my priest stepped in and saw to it that I got counceling and anti-depressant medication to handle my moods. No, I suffer from no diseases; I simply have depression. Still, some people would say that I should have had the right to take my own life if I so chose since I was so utterly miserable I wanted to die. Now that I'm well, I don't want to die. What does that do to that argument?
Finally, self-starvation for the sake of wanting to die is suicide. Feeding shouldn't be withheld. I think that if Mr. Smith feels self-starvation is not suicide he should reconsider his position and do some extended research.
By the way, I like it very much that my priest shamed me out of believing it was my right to die. Pallative care isn't in the same category as being suicidal. One seeks to prolong and improve life, one seeks to end it.
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