Saturday, March 15, 2008

Jail Sentence for Assisted Suicide Demonstrates Bigotry of PAS Attitudes

Now this is a particularly interesting illustration of the discrimination that the assisted suicide movement would imbed into the law. A man was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to five years in jail for assisting the suicide of his girlfriend. From the story:

A man who gave a loaded gun to his suicidal friend to "snap her out of it" and then watched in shock as she killed herself was sentenced to up to five years in prison for his role in her death. The man, Christopher Burda, 46, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the November 2005 suicide of Nancy Choquette of Stamford, Vt.
Here's the thing: If the woman had been suicidal due to cancer or ALS, Burda would never have been jailed, or if had been, there would have been an outcry not to punish him for his act of "compassion." Indeed, we have seen outright murders go essentially unpunished if the "motive" was to put a sick or disabled person out of their misery.

The dead girl was otherwise healthy, so Burda is feeling the weight of the law. But even this might be changing as there is now advocacy for a right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill--which was recently made a constitutional right in Switzerland. For those with eyes to see--please see!

1 Comments:

At March 15, 2008 , Blogger T E Fine said...

Here's what I don't get -

We don't let people make wills or accept the wills made someone if the will-maker is not in "sound mind and body," or at least "sound mind." Naturally, that's because a mentally ill person can't be trusted to make decisions about how his or her estate is to be divided.

We don't let mentally ill people sit on juries. They can't make sound decisions because of their mental imbalances.

Many times the mentally ill aren't allowed to have their children, because the kids need a supportive parent who's not likely to go off half-cocked on them.

If we can't trust people who are not of sound mind to do all these things, then what gives them the right to end their lives? They're not stable. They're not able to make proper decisions. They're not strong enough.

Now, keep in mind that most people who have disabilities or illness fall into depression at some point, which is a form of mental illness (not the blues, real clinical depression, I mean) and that depression turns your head over and puts you out of "sound mind." We wouldn't trust these folks to sit on a jury or to write a will, but we can trust them to kill themselves?

This has to be the most ridiculous situation I've ever heard of! Suicidal tendencies are a part of mental illness, cured with time, patience, sometimes drugs, and sometimes counciling. You can't say that it's a choice because it's not - it's a mess inside someone's head that needs to be fixed.

 

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