Death Obsession of Euthanasia Activists
Derek Humphry, the suicide guru and founder of the aptly named Hemlock Society (now the euphemistically called Compassion and Choices), has a post on his blog that, I think, illustrates the death obsession of most euthanasia activists. Humphry got famous writing how-to-commit-suicide books and is fascinated with suicide machines. Now, reacting to news about an elderly man in India who apparently willed himself to die, Humphry seems to suggest that "self-willed death" be considered a form of euthanasia to prevent "a glorification of natural death." This would be a misnomer, since if the phenomenon is real, nobody "killed" anyone. Be that as it may, I find it remarkable how no story about death escapes the rapt attention of these folk.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 11:55 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Weirdly enough, you really can will yourself to death. It ain't easy by any stretch because deep down most folks want to live until their time is up. Most of the folks who "will" themselves to death either are horribly, horribly messed up in the head (too badly for conventional psychiatric and medical intervention to really keep them in one piece), or they believe so much that they're going to die that they just DO. Or at least that's the thinking proposed by anthropologists who studied Haitian and some native African tribes. I can't say this with the kind of surety that I'd like to because I no longer have the book of articles I had for my anthro class, so I can't cite my source, so please take all this with a grain of salt, but I really do think it's possible.
As to these folks being obsessed with death, let me just say that I think it beyond weird that this guy doesn't want "natural death" to be "glorified." Why the hell not? He makes it sound like living to a ripe old age and keeling over with the Good Lord is good and ready for you is a crime!
Here's what bugs me - how many euthanasia proponents would like to be told either 1) "your 6-year-old child was injured in a car wreck and is now mentally retarded, so rather than burden you with his/her care, we're going to euthanize him/her. Isn't that lovely?" Or 2) "Hello, you've fallen outside the border of what we consider to be an appropriate life becuase you're too old/you don't meet inteligence critieria/ you're now physically disabled/ insert your favorite line here, so we're going to euthanize you. Have a pleasant day."
Hell, Singer pays bookoos out of pocket to care for his aged mother.
For some reason our society glorifies uselessness. If you're useless, you deserve a chance to die. I never see people who are physically disabled or who are brain damaged screaming, "Oh God, I want to die!" and really mean it.
Take a good look at the census of the USA and see how many disabled Americans there are, and see how many have died over the ten-year span, and how old they were when they died. I'm not exactly a scholar in this area, so if I'm wrong please correct me, but if I'm not mistaken, then aren't there a whole lot of people who, unless they died from natural causes related to their disability, keep right on living during those ten years?
Just a little thought, that's all.
That would be an affirmative, Tabs.
Singer's mother died of Alzheimer's. To his credit, he cared for her throughout her long illness. When asked why he didn't just euthanize her as a human non person, he said something to the effect of, "Well, it's different when it is your own mother."
Perhaps you can take the boy out of sanctity of life, but not the sanctity of life out of the boy.
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