"Dignitas" To Finish Hate Crime With Assisted Suicide

The Swiss assisted suicide group that calls itself Dignitas--which helps kill you for a fee--has agreed to assist the suicide of a man who became quadriplegic in a hate crime. The man is depressed and wants to die--which ironically, would finish the job that the neo Nazis started when they attacked him. From the story:

A British construction worker who was paralysed from the neck down after being attacked by neo-Nazis near Berlin 11 years ago has announced plans to take his own life by the end of the year.

Noel Martin, 47, who rammed his car into a tree after far-right extremists hurled a 44lb concrete block at him in Mahlow, south of Berlin, has outlined his wishes in his autobiography, Call It My Life, to be published in Germany this week.

Martin told The Observer by telephone from his home in Edgbaston, Birmingham, that he felt he had nothing left to live for because his life had been reduced to being confined to a wheelchair and reliant on round-the-clock care.

'It's not a life, it's an existence,' he said. 'I can't feel anything, so I can't touch the world and can only watch as it passes by.'

Martin, a Briton of Jamaican origin, said that he had contacted Dignitas, the assisted-suicide clinic in Switzerland. 'They assessed my case and agreed that, based on my condition, my wish to die is justified.'

Assisted suicide is not about terminal illness when nothing else can be done to alleviate suffering. It is agreeing that others have lives not worth living or protecting. Worse, it is about giving moral permission to commit suicide and then facilitating the act. That's not compassion. It is abandonment. Let's hope that suicide prevention and disabled activists are able to intervene and dissuade Mr. Martin from allowing Dignitas to complete the earlier attempted murder that was perpetrated against him.