Heather MacAllister's Partner Lashes Out
Please pardon this long post, but there is no way to abridge the discussion and to justice do the important and deeply emotional matters that are considered.
Last month, I came across a story in the San Francisco Chronicle that made me think that the assisted suicide death of a woman named Heather MacAllister in Oregon might have been a case of suicide tourism. Kelli Dunham, MacAllister's partner, came across the post and expressed her "outrage." Here is her comment in full:
"Maybe I need to stay the hell out of the blogosphere, but I came across this post, ironically on a ;Bioethics' blog, authored by an ignorant asswipe by the name of Wesley Smith. He alleged that Heather's choice was a case of "suicide tourism." He also threatened to "look into it further. I submitted the following comment, but the comments are moderated so I can't imagine it will actually appear:
"This was not a case of suicide 'tourism.' If you would have googled for half a second more, you would have found multiple other sources that reference Heather MacAllister moving to Oregon over 9 months ago to escape the high price of living in San Francisco. I am Heather MacAllister's partner and I can personally attest that her decision was carefully made, and only made after fighting stage III ovarian cancer for three years with nothing but love, raw courage and her friends at her side. Assisted suicide would not have been my choice, not by a long shot, but it was her choice. And anyone who would have taken this choice away from her knows nothing of 'ethics.'
"Heather had a memorial service in a city where she was no longer living because her courage, love of--and fight for--life inspired so many. She was a person who wanted to make the world a better place and she did. It's a travesty that her last choices are being maligned by an elitist, self-righteous, ignorant prig who can't even be bothered to research the allegation he is making. You disgust me
"Heather fought for life like the bitch femme diva goddess that she was. Heather was on chemo for almost three years without a break. Heather marshaled every resource available to her, including a cast of more than 160 'lovetroopers' who researched, pushed, pulled, supported and made sure she had what she needed, and then some. Heather went on a multiple city, cross country tour with Big Burlesque more than a year into her treatment.
"Heather climbed the [epithet deleted] L'arche De Triumph after a 10 hour airplane flight and no sleep, all less than 36 hours after a chemo infusion. Heather ran away from home to Santa Cruz to find new treatment options when the docs in SF gave her up for dead. Heather lived 1 year, 2 months and 24 days after her SF oncologist gave her two weeks---(two weeks, did you read that Wesley Smith!?)--to live.
"The folks from the Death with Dignity non profit organization have called me twice about talking with the press and/or other groups about our experience. I haven't bothered to return those phone calls, because I feel so ambivalent about the whole process. Truthfully, I miss Heather so much it's an actual physical ache. My chest feels like it has something rattling around in it. So, of course, I sometimes selfishly have moments of wishing it had been different.
"But Heather got sweet release and death on her own damn terms. I am so glad that soul-less, empathy-impaired wankers like Wesley Smith were not able to keep that from her."
Dunham's angry reaction to my post is worth pondering. Read my original post: I never disparaged Ms. MacAllister. I did not criticize her. I did not diminish the difficulty of dealing with terminal cancer, which I would never do. (My dad died of colon cancer. I have been a hospice volunteer. Believe me, I understand the difficulties of cancer.) In fact, I did not characterize the morality of her assisted suicide in any way. Indeed, the entire post was directed at the Oregon law and the meaninglessness of the "residency" requirement. Hence, all of the criticisms that Ms. Dunham purportedly sees coming from me came out of her own mind. Such is the nature of grief.
I don't like to personalize these discussions, but since Ms. Dunham raised the issue, it is worth noting that had Ms. MacAllister believed her San Francisco doctors' prediction of two weeks to live, and had assisted suicide been legal in California, she would have qualified for assisted suicide under A.B. 374 at that point in time. Had she swallowed the prescribed poison pills at that time she and Ms. Dunham would have missed out on the life she yet had to live, a time that Ms. Dunham clearly treasures.
We should all sympathize with the Dunham's grief and wish her well. Her deep pain honors her dead partner. But I also think we have to ponder the deeper meaning of perceiving "choice" as the end all and be all of liberty. To embrace any choice--regardless of what it is and no matter how destructive to self and those who love us--is to create a cultural milieu in which the weak and vulnerable become materially threatened. Indeed, this is precisely why the disability rights community is so adamantly against legalized assisted suicide.
It is also worth noting that the euthanasia crowd want to use MacAllister's death to further their political agenda. One of the movement's tactics is to take the profound emotionalism that surrounds such a death and use it as a club to prevent discussion of the wider public policy issues that must be contemplated in the debate over assisted suicide. Even so, I think the story Ms. Dunham demonstrates how very harmful legalizing assisted suicide would be. I repeat, if California had legalized assisted suicide, the time MacAllister and Dunham had beyond which the doctors predicted, might not have been lived. And no one would have ever known what was missed.
As MacAllister's story demonstrates vividly, dying isn't dead. It is living. This is why the hospice movement believes so strongly in suicide prevention. And that truth is one of the important understandings that assisted suicide advocacy diminishes. Indeed, for Ms. Dunham to think of herself as "selfish" for wishing things "had been different," demonstrates vividly how profoundly harmful the assisted suicide movement really is.
(There are other angry comments to my original post at bioethics.org. And I did Google Heather MacAllister and came up with very little.)
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:29 AM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
Ms. Dunham desperately needs the support and love of the entire cancer community - my own father had colon cancer and his recovery has been hell on earth for us.
It's awful, more awful than anyone can say, to deal with the death of a loved one, especially when cancer is involved.
Right now there are vultures hovering around Ms. Dunham - both the pro-life and pro-euthanasia groups are spying this out to use the woman's death to their advantage.
Wesley, you and I have the same opinions about assisted suicide; I won't argue that I think you're right. But I think that you should (if possible, I'm not familiar with Blogger) lock this post so that there won't be anymore comments for a while - right now this is too raw for any of us to look at logically, especially given how hurt Ms. Dunham is at this time.
We can pick up the discussion later. Right now I think that respect for the living and dead outweigh the debate.
Tabs: I disagree. Under your prescription, we would never be able to talk about anything of import, whether involving bioethics, Iraq, or other controversies of the day.
My original post was not directed at Ms. MacAllister, but at the law of Oregon. Ms. Dunham leaped to assume condemnation that wasn't there. Her friends then jumped on board.
People frequently use the emotions generated by these issues--which are very real--to squash reasoned discussion and to keep us from looking at the bigger picture. But that is a disservice to the tremendous import of the issue with which we grapple here. Indeed, the rawness of this case is an important aspect of the discussion and may open an avenue of mutual understanding if not agreement.
My primary intent in this post is to allow those who took acute umbrage at me to have their say here, and to point out that the assisted suicide movement has, in my view, profoundly disserved Ms. MacAllister and those who loved her, based on Ms. Dunham's own statements.
I will not permit there to be any personal references against people with whom I disagree or either Ms. MacAllister or Dunham. But the commenters here at SHS don't do that.
We can discuss this reasonably, if people wish to, without shattering anyone's personality.
Wesley:
"Tabs: I disagree. Under your prescription, we would never be able to talk about anything of import, whether involving bioethics, Iraq, or other controversies of the day."
I'm not saying do away with the topic, I'm saying put a pause on it temporarily because there are smart-asses who are using the death of this poor woman as a platform for all kinds of denunciations, and I'm not talking about people denouncing euthanasia, either. We're not a part of that - let the hate-mongers get it out of their system so they don't interrupt intelligent conversation. That's what I meant by the "vultures" hovering around. *Someone* is going to say something stupid here and we're going to get into a fight. I'd rather wait *one or two days* and *then* discuss, instead of opening the floodgates.
You know me, Wesley - I don't have the common sense not to talk about 99% of things that offend people because I've got a big ego and a small brain. Ordinarily I'd be right out there shoving my ignorance in people's faces. I just don't want things to turn unnecessarily ugly. We're here to talk bioethics, not to start preaching hellfire and brimstone.
It's not fair to malign the dead - you haven't, not in my opinion. I don't want people associating us with folks who *have.*
I didn't malign the dead. You didn't malign the dead. Nobody here at SHS has maligned the dead. If someone did, I would stop it. I would stop them from maligning Ms. Dunham. I would stop them from maligning you. I would stop them from maligning any commenter. However, I would permit them, assuming they did not use profanity or engage in threatening language, to malign me.
I'm totally with Wesley on this one. I don't think he's done anything inappropriate in raising these questions or posting this.
And I've gotta say, I don't think anybody has to worry too much about pro-life vultures in this situation. I know others may disagree, but I think I see where the opportunism is coming from on this one.
"I'm totally with Wesley on this one. I don't think he's done anything inappropriate in raising these questions or posting this."
No, he didn't, not at all. Grief as raw as Ms. Dunham's gets to me, especially when you see people get up on the soap boxes and start preaching about how the low are going to be cast down to hell and all that jazz.
Wesley's comments were all appropriate and very respectful. I just don't want to be in the middle of something hurtful - there's still a woman grieving for her dead loved one here to consider. That's all.
Lydia:
Pro-life *and* pro-choice vultures! There are some people out there who totally forget you have a hurt person sitting here missing someone she loved dearly and instead use that person's image to represent the "cause" without considering the grieving person's feelings.
This isn't even a tough subject for me - I agree with Wes. I just hate seeing someone hurting this badly and I don't like to add to the fire. Grief is a terrible, tricky thing. You have to move on, but nobody moves at the same pace.
Ordinarily I'm oblivious to how something I say might be hurtful, but I just don't want us adding to Ms. Dunham's pain, either by inadvertently doing something or by leaving ourselvs open for someone to move in and raise a fuss about inappropriate topics. She's really in my thoughts and prayers right now, and I just worry is all.
I'll shut up about it right now, though - I've been voted down and I respect Wesley's judgment. I'm content that nobody will say or do anything stupid.
You, Wesley J. Smith , are a disgusting human being. While you sell yourself as an expert in the fields of morality and ethics, your libeling of this woman's very last moments in life and her very personal choices (of which you know NOTHING) reveal your true character.
Disgusting.
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