SHOCK (Not): Assisted Suicide for a Depressed Woman
The media in Australia and New Zealand are shocked that Philip Nitschke--the Down Under Jack Kevorkian--would help a woman commit suicide who wasn't terminally ill. What amazes me is that they are seemingly surprised. He's done it before in the Nancy Crick case, in which he admitted both that he and Crick knew she wasn't terminally ill when he counseled her to commit suicide and that he and she had lied to the media before the event claiming she was dying in order to gain sympathetic coverage. From the current story: Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke has been accused of advising a depressed woman who took her own life about smuggling lethal drugs from Mexico. The Sunday Star-Times reported that the 68-year-old woman, who was not terminally ill, killed herself in 2006 with drugs she smuggled home from Mexico after seeking advice from Dr Nitschke.
With regard to assisted suicide not really being about terminal illness: Many just don't want to see the evidence that is before their very eyes. Here is just a sampling:
- Euthanasia/assisted suicide is available to the depressed in the Netherlands.
- The Swiss Supreme Court recently created a constitutional right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill.
- There is advocacy in very high places here in the USA for the same thing.
- Most of Jack Kevorkian's "patients" were not terminally ill, and five weren't even sick upon autopsy.
- At least one non terminally ill patient (as defined by the Oregon law) has received a lethal prescription in that state. Despite it being revealed in a peer reviewed journal article, the state took no action against the prescribing doctor.
- In Canada, Tracy Latimer, murdered by her father because she had cerebral palsy was not terminally ill--and he was supported by a wide swath of the public and media commentators.
I could go on. But you know the old saying, none are so blind as those who refuse to see.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 1:27 PM
14 Comments
14 Comments:
Nitschke's view on suicide is that it's legal, therefore all methods of suicide should be legal.
What he doesn't do is allow 13-year-olds into his workshops. Only those over 50 or who have a terminal/incurable illness are allowed to attend.
The newspapers were informed of Crick's condition (no cancer) before she took her life. Crick knew that, and she still felt that life wasn't worth living. Who are you to claim that she was wrong, simply because she committed suicide? If you're going to assert that suicide is NEVER rational, you'd have to explain why in EVERY SINGLE CASE.
Only those over 50 can make and effect policies, since they view themselves (and are frequently viewed by others) as burdens on society and their families. He wants them and the terminally ill at the seminars because he wants them to help him change policy, and since they're the ones "suffering" from life, they will have the loudest voices. A bunch of 13-year-old suicidally depressed teens would make people feel uncomfortable and would spark the parental instinct in most folks, since they have "so much to live for," what with their whole lives ahead of them and all.
And we do explain why it's never rational in every single case - you treat any person like he or she is a commodity, something that only has value if it's putting something back into society, and pretty soon the only people who will matter are those who are the most productive. If I'm a poor stiff who works hard, I can survive to be someone else's drudge. If I'm a rich SOB who owns multiple businesses, I can have anything I want, including a long and happy life. But if I'm an old chick who is past my prime and not able to work 'cause I'm happily retired, and can't produce any more babies, and I'm old so my children have to help take care of me (whether or not I have money set aside for this is beyond the point), then someone is going to say to himself, "Why is this woman still alive? She's draining our resources, isn't making babies or money, and she's taking her children's time up that they could spend being productive." And then I'd be encouraged to suicide, a la SOYLENT GREEN.
But what's this got to do with teenagers?
If you have suicidally depressed teens in your society, they're not going to be ultra-productive. They're going to take up space in hopsitals, need psychiatric care, and take up the time of their folks, who could be spending the time being productive. So the easiest thing is to let them kill themselves quickly and painlessly, freeing up the folks to have better children who aren't depressed and to go about producing.
It's not so far-fetched a notion. One lady I read about (whose name escapes me but it was posted here on SHS) complained that she wanted to kill herself before she became a burden on her children, probably as a way of venting her frustration at having to take care of her elderly mother.
Why shouldn't society encourage people to take care of the elderly, the sick, the insane, the depressed, the imprisoned, the poor, the unhealthy, and the dying? Why should we look at this as a burden instead of as a chance to grow and understand their plight, and realize someday we're going to stop being able-bodied ourselves?
Tony: As per your usual, you get the facts plain wrong. The news Crick wasn't terminally ill came out after her autopsy. It was THEN that Nitschke said he and Crick knew it all along.
My point, of course, is that assisted suicide won't be limited to the terminally ill. Which you support.
As to troubled teens, he said it in an interview in NRO and indeed, he said the suicide pill should be available in supermarkets.
"And we do explain why it's never rational in every single case - you treat any person like he or she is a commodity, something that only has value if it's putting something back into society, and pretty soon the only people who will matter are those who are the most productive. If I'm a poor stiff who works hard, I can survive to be someone else's drudge. If I'm a rich SOB who owns multiple businesses, I can have anything I want, including a long and happy life. But if I'm an old chick who is past my prime and not able to work 'cause I'm happily retired, and can't produce any more babies, and I'm old so my children have to help take care of me (whether or not I have money set aside for this is beyond the point), then someone is going to say to himself, "Why is this woman still alive? She's draining our resources, isn't making babies or money, and she's taking her children's time up that they could spend being productive." And then I'd be encouraged to suicide, a la SOYLENT GREEN."
Tell that to the Holocaust victims who killed themselves. I doubt you'd convince them to keep on living, which is the real litmus test. You've done nothing to reduce the elderly suicide rate. As they themselves said, "I don't want to be in a nursing home where all you get are bingo and singsongs."
You haven't explained why suicide is ALWAYS unjustified - you're taking one easily refutable example and extrapolating it to everyone else who wants to commit suicide.
Wesley, can you give one example of Nitschke giving Nembutal to a teenager or taking them to Mexico? No, because that's not what he does. He's tried to convince people like Lisette Nigot to hang on for longer.
The final nail in the pro-life coffin is this: the fact that they did not stop Nancy Crick from committing suicide. Perhaps they really want the choice for themselves. Just not for anyone else.
Tony: Nitschke was a coward in the Nitschke case. He wasn't even there when she killed herself--to the applause of assisted suicide fanatics.
He advocates suicide availability for troubled teens.
The Crick tragedy is a terrible thing on many levels.
But you keep trying to push us off the point of this post: That assisted suicide has nothing to do with terminal illness. As you have advocated in this identity and your last banned identity, it is about death on demand. Which you support as a matter of "freedom," and which I reject as a matter of abandonment of those most in need of the love and suppot of their community. So we agree about what the argument is really about.
So why didn't you and your minions stop them from committing suicide? It wouldn't have been hard - just strap a senior citizen to a bed and yell at them until their urge to commit suicide fades.
Tony-
'Tell that to the Holocaust victims who killed themselves. I doubt you'd convince them to keep on living, which is the real litmus test. You've done nothing to reduce the elderly suicide rate. As they themselves said, "I don't want to be in a nursing home where all you get are bingo and singsongs."'
Actually, I have done some things to decrease the elderly suicide rate - I have lived at home with my 71-year-old father, who was seriously depressed after discovering he had colon cancer. I take the time to hang out with him, to keep him cheerful and to give him moral support. He went from suicidal depression to fairly close to back to normal (hey, depression runs on both sides of my family, so I'm not asking for miracles here). He's happy to be alive, taking joy in having his youngest daughter with him, and I've introudced him to a number of new friends who come over and spend time with him, and he's adopted their kids as his surroget grandchildren. My father *could* have tried to justify killing himself, I suppose, by saying that at his age (he was 69 when it was discovered) and his health (he has diabetes) he didn't have much to live for. Instead, he has discovered quite a lot to live for. He's never going into a nursing home where all they have are bingo and sing-alongs, because I'm willing to make a small sacrifice of my personal time to help my mother take care of him. And what do I lose? A few hours watching dumb TV shows I hate? Big deal! We sit and talk and he gives me advice, and I make him laugh, and we have fun together. We go out, shop, visit friends, play with the 'grandchildren' and basically enjoy each other's company. The small sacrifice of time, when added into my life, is hardly noticable. I feel like I'm gaining a lot more than I'm losing.
And as to the Holocaust victims that killed themselves, likewise, they had much to live for - ask my mother's family, the ones who came out of Treblinka and made it to America, to start new lives. The fact that these people were pushed by their horrible situation into suicide is, in my estimation, an act of murder on the part of the Nazis, who were doing everything they could to exterminate other human beings. These victims had nothing to hold on to, and tried to escape the only way they could think of. That's an act of desperation. It shouldn't have happened, anymore than the fact that some Jews turned on their own people to save their lives should have happened. People did terrible things in a bad situation. But other people, despite the horrible circumstances, held on to hope and lived to leave the camps, and lived to start new lives. Do I think that my family who died in the camps from suicide were wrong? I think they were pushed to make a wrong decision. I don't think they should have suicided - that just gave into Hitler's evil. That is backing down in the face of evil. Do I hate them for it? No. But I do believe it was the wrong choice.
Backing down in the face of people who want to kill you is cowardice. Which is why, despite the fact that I'm a 30-year-old English Lit Major with no scientific background, I will continue to post to SHS and argue against the likes of people who believe that ANYBODY can justify any kind of murder - self murder or abortion or murder of the disabled - because I refuse to back down to what I know, heart and soul, to be evil.
I will continue to help Ma administer Daddy's pain medication, clean up after him when his colostomy bag has a blow out, and enjoy his company until the day that he dies, even if by the end he doesn't recognize my face - because I love him, and to me he is the world, and to me, he is worth the extra effort. And if you can't see that, then I have to ask you - why haven't YOU made any sacrifices to ensure that someone suicidal doesn't feel the need to kill himself anymore? What makes YOU so much better than me that you can justify your attitude, when you haven't given up anything? I've barely given up anything at all, and I get so much more in return.
Most people who kevetch about seniors wanting to avoid nursing homes never considered taking the time to do the work for the home instead.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I'm glad that you gave your father's life meaning. Good for you.
Newsflash: It doesn't always work. Many people are fiercely independent. You framed your care as selfish - "I love him, and to me he is the world, and to me, he is worth the extra effort."
The fact that you are sacrificing your time and energy doesn't change the fact that you are benefitting from his being alive. If your counselling failed to give him a reason to continue living, what would have been your response then?
Tony -
'If your counselling failed to give him a reason to continue living, what would have been your response then?'
To see to it that he got professional help from my clergymen, from a licensed psychiatrist, and from the rest of the family, who pitched in to help when needed, until he was made to recognize that he has unique value and that he doesn't need to produce anything to be an important part of our lives. Christian clergy often offer free counseling in crisis situations, and have in the past provided the funds to see our neighbors get the medical care they needed, including psychiatric care.
I'd make the effort to remind him that he's priceless.
Priceless to you, perhaps. But not everyone wants to go on living at all costs. And what bothers me about pro-lifers is that they generally see self-sacrifice as justifiable but suicide as not. So if someone can fabricate a good enough reason to die (such as jumping on a grenade in war), you'd have no problem with that.
A man who throws himself on a grenade is being murdered by the person who set the grenade. Yes, he is trying to be the only one to die, but it's murder out-and-out. I have a big problem with it, actually. I can understand why someone would do it - it's a last-ditch effort to spare lives. But understanding doesn't mean I don't have a problem with it. I don't think it should have to happen to begin with, and that the situation should be treated like a murder. Killing yourself to end pain is running away from a problem that the entire community should be working to cure. Killing yourself because you feel useless is running away from a bad feeling that everyone should be trying to counteract. Killing yourself because you're depressed is giving in to a mental imbalance that can be improved. Dying because someone is trying to murder you and your friends and you're just changing the equation by limiting the murder to yourself is being murdered, period. The situations have nothing to do with each other.
(Killing yourself to end pain is running away from a problem that the entire community should be working to cure. Killing yourself because you feel useless is running away from a bad feeling that everyone should be trying to counteract. Killing yourself because you're depressed is giving in to a mental imbalance that can be improved.)
Human beings are not guinea pigs for you to experiment on without their consent, no matter how noble your motives.
There are many truth regarding struggling teens camp, seminars etc. It is something like that. In these seminars actually more concentration given danger related to troubled teens camp.
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