Tabloid Voyerism Comes to Assisted Suicide
Media is so pornographic these days, and not just about matters sexual. A Brit tabloid has published photos from an assisted suicide, depictions taken from a soon-to-be-aired television show. From the story:
It will be the first time an assisted suicide has been shown on British TV and will be sure to spark debate over the legality of the sensitive subject--as well as the controversial decision to screen it.Clearly, this was a suicide caused by depression and despair--and fear of the future. I wonder if he or his family consulted with hospice professionals who could have assured him that he wouldn't have to suffer terribly unable to cry out. And who knows, had he hung in, he might have again found the joy in life.
The retired university professor and dad-of-two decided to end his life as his illness was crippling his body. Mr Ewert said: 'I am tired of the disease but I am not tired of living. I still enjoy life enough that I would like to continue but the thing is that I really cannot.
'If I opt for life then that is choosing to be tortured rather than end this journey and start the next one. I cannot take the risk. Let's face it, when you're completely paralysed and cannot talk how do you let somebody know you are suffering? This could be a complete and utter hell.
I know of what I speak. My last hospice patient (as a volunteer) was a wonderful man named Bob Salamanca, who died of ALS. He told me that for the first 2 1/2 years of his illness, if he could have gone to Kevorkian he would have. He was depressed and very suicidal. But by the time I met him, he had "come out of the fog" in his words and was relishing life. Yes, it was hard. Yes, there were times when he despaired. But because his family supported his life, not his suicide, and also because the Mormon church reached out to him and let him know he was wanted--first through missionaries and then as a church, for example sending a taping crew to his house so he could present a Sunday message even though he was too ill to leave the house--and because he found the joy in life through the struggle of becoming a total quadriplegic, he rejected suicide. More than that, he would get spitting mad at assisted suicide advocates who used ALS patients as their bloody flag of advocacy. "They are trying to push me out of the bright lit boulevard into the dark alley," he told me the day after watching a Nightline program that focused on an ALS patient who wanted assisted suicide. Indeed, he even wrote a column published by the San Francisco Chronicle, ("I Don’t Want a Choice to Die," February 19, 1997, no link available).which read in part:
Euthanasia advocates believe they are doing people like me a favor. They are not. The negative emotions toward the terminally ill and disabled generated by their advocacy is actually at the expense of the 'dying' and their families and friends, who often feel disheartened and without self assurance because of a false picture of what it is like to die created by these enthusiasts who prey on the misinformed.Of course, if the death with dignity crowd had been able to get their hands on Bob before he came out of that fog, he would have been dead instead of relishing the end time of his life ("I wouldn't have missed this for the world," he once told me. Such statements by properly cared for dying people have become so common they are almost a hospice cliche`) And as he was lowered into the grave, the death with dignity facilitators would have been clapping themselves on the back about their oh, so deep compassion, ignorant of the coming good life that they had robbed Bob of when they yielded to his despair.
What we, the terminally ill, need is exactly the opposite--to realize how important our lives are. And our loved ones, friends, and indeed society, need to help us feel that we are loved and appreciated unconditionally.
But that's not the message media wants to send, and apparently it is not one many people want to hear. It is all about "death with dignity" now--as if Bob dying peacefully in his sleep wasn't dignified.
Labels: Assisted Suiicde. Media Voyeurism. Lou Gehrig's Disease. Motor Neurone Disease. Robert Salamanca.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 8:21 AM
12 Comments
12 Comments:
It's not that it's on television that's most terrible, it's that it happened, and for all we know it might not have but for the possibility of its being televised.
Until I read Wesley's comment about his experience with hospice, I had been against the notion of hospice because on the grounds that it is part of the death culture. Now I can see how useful it can be.
The death culture in this city, however, seems to want to push older people into hospice whether they belong there or not, because, after all, "they are going to die." Everyone assumes they cannot recover and wants them to get "palliative care," "comfort care," and "hospice" no matter what they themselves want or how capable they are of recovery.
What "next journey"? I believe there is one, but considering that there is no way back from it and that if it exists it's going to be undertaken inevitably and eventually anyway, what's the hurry, and if there is one, how does someone who's decided to take it know what they will face, within their own soul, once they are on it, if they have begun it before they should have?
"Dignity" is derived from the Latin adjective "dignus," which means "befitting the person in question." I suppose that if someone is an absolute, irretrievable, hopeless coward, "death with dignity," as the death culture has invented it, theoretically befits them, but even in that case it would be unnecessary, as their lack of will to live will do them in anyway. But for anyone with the least flicker of desire and capacity to live, the death they eventually experience befits them only if it happens in its own time and no matter what its nature, and what the death culture seeks to impose on them and "gift" them with, which it now often succeeds in doing, is "death with indignity," not to mention murder, whether they think at the time that they want it or not.
Another disturbing element of all this is the people who make it their business to "help" others "die with dignity." Unless one is a pathologist or a professional undertaker/funeral director making a living by performing a service necessary and valuable to society, it's not natural or normal or healthy to want to be around, let about bring about, death; it's perversion. Who would feel a need to, enjoy, or find satisfaction in doing this? How powerful does it make them feel? What internal agendas are they satisfying by doing it? Why does no one examine the backgrounds and histories of these sick puppies? (Who would want to? That's why no one does, I suppose, and if they do, what is in their psyches, characters, and backgrounds?) SHS's comment about those who would have put someone in his grave before his time slapping one another on the back is extremely significant.
I nominate this one for an episode of "What We Are Becoming" on SHS too.
CRIMONY! It's a snuff movie!!!
The death culture wasn't in effect, at least in the U.S., when Hollywood, the stage, television, and book publishers weren't yet putting out products that portrayed, described, and discussed things that are an essential part of life, part of physical reality, etc., but not to be done in public, was it?
The Germans, on the other hand, were doing some pretty strange things, and permitted extreme decadence, at the same time the death culture got started there, before WWII. The Dutch had Amsterdam, and then they were the first to propose legalizing child suicide. Switzerland, I don't know, maybe more wholesome with the fresh air and the Alps and everything, but on the other hand amoral with the neutrality and the harboring fugitive financial criminals and all, and look what they've cooked up. I don't know about Scotland, but there's a song, "There is no England any more." I guess it's too obvious to have merited comment here, but it seems that the death culture has coincided with abandonment of taste, decorum, respect, value placed on elevating life, civilization, style, virtue, restraint, etc. Other civilizations -- Greece, Rome, Japan, for example -- have yielded their examples of suicide, but ones done for reasons of honor and principle, not convenience, and throughout history people have been willing to die for reasons of honor and principle, not convenience. Fewer people lived to old age, and there was no way to keep some disabled people alive before the "death culture" took hold here. But why, now that more do live longer and can be kept alive, are we trying to kill them? How much respect for "progress" is that? Why have we regressed culturally and morally at the same time as we have advanced materially and technologically?
Speaking of which, did the death culture get started in pre-WWII and WWII Germany, the country that prides itself on scientific and technological genius and achievement? As a matter of fact, Germany, Switzerland, and Scotland seem to be pioneers of the death culture, and those countries have a genius for engineering, technology, precision, and science; they are all known for a preference not to waste money, too, as well as for climates that do not exactly discourage any tendency one might have to depression. Anyway, where there is a lot of science, there is animal experimentation, which has done moral damage, encouraged science and those who "respect" itto be irrational and out of control, and had the effect of devaluing respect for life -- and there is also the death culture.
The FIRST time assisted suicide has been shown on British TV -- what, there's going to be MORE? They're "in talks" and "taking meetings" about a series, maybe? Everyone is going to "get" to see it all the time so that they can be conditioned to aspire to be like and do what they see on TV the way Ozzie and Harriett modelled family life and kids grew up wanting to grow up to be cowboys, Dr. Kildare, or Perry Mason, then cops, and now chefs or CSI investigators? With all due respect to human exceptionalism, "Monkey see, monkey do!"
Talk about "Reality TV"....
"Come here, Jason and Ashley! We're going to watch TV now. See the person dying? See how the other nice person is helping him to die? That's death, kids. It's a natural part of life, and it can be very pleasant. See? This is part of your education. It's important that you should see this, and know about this. It's a natural part of life. Don't be afraid! See, it doesn't hurt the person at all! This is what that person has decided to to because they have decided this is the time when they want to die. Everybody has that right, and they can have someone help them, just like you see here. You have that right, too! Remember, it's your life, and you're in control of when you want to die. You can choose to do it whenever you want, and you can have someone help you. Just remember, kids, you can only do it once! Ok, who wants ice cream? Popcorn, you want popcorn while we're watching this? Ok, I think we'll have time to make popcorn in the kitchen and then come back and watch this very important educational tv program. The person should still be alive for a little while, and we'll be able to catch the really important part, at the end. And if we miss it, there will be another one next week. Just think, someday you'll be able to do this, too! Maybe you can even do it on television if you want to. Remember, kids, it's verrry important to die with dignity. See how it's done? No, don't cry, Ashley, the person WANTS to die. It's not scary, really it isn't!"
Lanthe -
O.O
Whoa.
Okay, I'm totally seeing where you're going. I see where you're coming from, too, and I believe you're right on, and yet I can't help but stand by my earlier feelings that natural death, as someone is dying of old age, or from illness, is a natural part of life and that the whole life of a person should be celebrated.
I could see it this way - Imagine the kids, especially young Ashley, are all around Grandmother's beside while she's sick and dying from natural causes. Her mother encourages Ashley to talk to Grandma, to ask questions and to find out about her life. Together, while they mourn for her death, they are celebrating the beauty of her life. The last few months together, the family carries Grandma's burden, but Ashley grows to understand that pain of loss is something that both humbles and strenghtens us, that God is never cruel, and that she is doing good by suffering with her Grandmother. When Grandma finally does pass on, Ashley has lived part of her life in the service of this woman, and grows from it. She does feel pain and sympathy and mourning, but so does the family. It's not something voyurestic, it's something that you get inside of, and she learns the dignity that her grandmother had even as she lay dying.
I only mention th is because I'm afraid that people might see my comments about how life is to be celebrated and natural death to be embraced by the community as being something akin to favoring euthanasia, and it's far from it. I'm on your side on that - euthanasia is evil, out and out, and nobody, NOBODY, should ever be encouraged to die. Every effort should be made to ease a person's pain and to make sure that person knows his or her worth is absolute.
This is nothing more than a snuff film and should be banned from television.
T.E. Of course -- but this is on TELEVISION! And it's not Ashley's own grandmother, and Ashley isn't at her bedside, and these are strangers, and it's voyeurism. Plus what kind of person wants strangers to watch them die, on television? How much "control" over one's death is that? Well, I suppose they "chose" to have it on television...if they actually did choose it...and now they are stars of their own reality show. It's not like loved ones at the bedside... As for every effort being made to ease a person's pain, that's assuming that they are in pain, and I'm not even sure it's correct; dying is a part of life, to be gone through just like every other part of life, and pain is part of life. That's my view, anyway. I'd rather be alive and in pain than dead and no longer in my body, or dying and out of it. We are alive right up to the moment we die, and death happens in the blink of an eye, unless we're being taken off life support or otherwise "euthanized." I know what you mean about making sure the person knows their worth is absolute, but I don't understand how anyone could doubt that about themselves in the first place, and I have a feeling that's how anyone who is fighting for their life feels. As for anyone who is not fighting for their life, I just don't get that at all.
SUSAN: Right!
I wish I hadn't lost all my books and notes and everything as the result of the stunt the hospital that murdered my mother caused; if I hadn't, I'd know how to find what I'm trying to remember; it's a long time since I was immersed in academia, teaching, and the study of the classical world, but I do seem to remember that as Rome was becoming no longer what it had been, a lot of the same kind of voluntary/assisted suicide "death with dignity" type stuff was going on. I hope I'm remembering that right. At least they didn't put it on TV.
What is going on these days re legalized suicide and assisted suicide, euthanasia, etc. in countries where suicide has been a tradition, as a matter of honor, like Japan, and was it India where they had (still have?) the tradition of the suttee, in which a widow would join her just-deceased husband on his funeral pyre? Would the latter have been for utilitarian reasons as well, as in who's going to support her now? Though it always seemed more a matter of honor to me, is it also that? Would Indian wives killed "because the stove blew up" be part of the utilitarian tradition? Anyway, what's going on re the "death culture" in those places now?
IS THERE NOTHING WE DON'T HAVE TO LOOK AT THESE DAYS? Underwear models of both genders on magazine pages and billboards. People depicting performing bodily functions in tv and movies. Babies in the womb on sonograms. Videocams of childbirth. Transparent dead bodies presented as "art." IS THERE NO PRIVACY?
Lanthe -
I went to BodyWorlds right around the time I had my nervous breakdown. Imagine suffering from major death anxiety and being shuffled through a room full of dismembered humans by your best friends.
Dark day in my life.
The worst were the babies. Those were hard and horrible.
There was a little boy ahead of us who was with his mom as she explained all the things they were looking at. At the end of the tour the little boy asked her, "Mom, who made these people?"
The mom told him that scientists had taken dead people and preserved them for our education, to which the boy asked, "How come the scientists killed all these people?"
I kid you not, the boy actually asked that, and his mom almost freaked.
It's bad juju on SO many levels, not just for privacy invasion, but for forcing kids to be exposed to things that nobody their age should have to start contemplating.
I think you wouldn't have the death anxiety if it weren't for religion.
I would never go to see that. It's not beautiful, it doesn't feel right, and since I disapprove of it I wouldn't patronize the artist or the museum that showed it by attending or with a cent. I can't believe your friends took you there. I can't believe they went themselves. Why did they even want to go? Why would anyone?
From the mouths of babes...The scientists didn't kill those people, but they're killing other people, and partly by having used those people...
It IS bad juju. What's wrong with his mother for taking him there is what I want to know. It should't even BE, let alone in a museum. I think one of the problems in this country is that we're too concerned about "sensitivity," including of children, and that we coddle children and ourselves too much; I don't believe a kid is too young to see it, or to see a slaughterhouse and understand what survival means and costs; I just don't think it should have been done in the first place; I just don't think anyone should see it, and that it shouldn't exist in the first place. It's not art, and it's not right. It is part of the death culture, though.
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