Why Isn't This Just "Aid in Dying" Too?
A Canadian man is under arrest for assisted suicide in the death of his wife. She had no apparent illness. The couple were apparently suffering from very hard economic times, but precise details are not yet known. From the story:
A 46-year-old Waterloo, Ont., man is scheduled to appear in provincial court Tuesday to face an assisted suicide charge after police found the body of his wife in a Thunder Bay motel Friday.Let's assume for the moment--to illustrate what is happening in our culture, not to prejudge this case--that Yanisa was just sick of living because of hard times and asked her husband to help her die: If it would be okay for him to do the deed if, say, she had ALS, why not in this hypothetical situation, too? After all, isn't the "right to die" about a purported sacrosanct liberty to determine the time, manner, and place of one's own death? Once that principle is accepted, the details become minutia, because one person's bearable difficulty is another's unbearable suffering.
Peter Bernard Fonteece has also been charged with criminal negligence causing death after his wife Yanisa Fonteece, 38, was found dead in a room at the motel shortly after 6 a.m. Peter Fonteece called 911, police said. Thunder Bay police released the name of the couple after it failed to locate Yanisa Fonteece's next of kin. The couple was unemployed and travelling west, possibly to B.C., when their car broke down in Thunder Bay, police said in a statement.
The blah-blah-blah non statement about the situation by a Canadian assisted suicide affectionado would sure seem to point in that direction:
Martin Frith, a spokesman for Dying with Dignity, a group lobbying for law reform, said it is difficult to gage the number of assisted suicides in Canada each year since they happen "below the radar" because of fear of criminal proceedings. "It's really problematic that in the absence of a law that would actually allow for assisted dying we have situations where well intentioned family members who are supporting a mature, competent adult runs the risk of being charged with assisted suicide," he said, noting he was not referring to one particular case.Alex Schadenberg has his head on straight:
Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition said the law is there to protect vulnerable people. "Nobody should ever be allowed to directly and intentionally be involved in taking another persons life," Schadenberg said. "That is a line we should never cross."I don't understand why that simple point is so hard to grasp by so many today. Perhaps it is just that we live in profoundly nihilistic times in which the importance of human life itself has become lost in the gray. As Canadian journalist Andrew Coyne put it once so succinctly:
A society that believes in nothing can offer no argument even against death. A culture that has lost its faith in life cannot comprehend why it must be endured.
Labels: Assisted Suicide. Culture of Death. Nihilsm. Andrew Coyne.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:17 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
To add to my above comment (about ITalians and Eluana E.,) I find people so ready to believe that your family will always be making the BEST decision for you. When I point out that your family might not have any idea what you want, or might just want you out of the way, I get no response.
I love my family, and trust them, but WHY are we getting into a place in which we can accept the word of someone else that "Oh,it's ok that I killed her! She really wanted to die!"
My dear friend is currently suffering as her father -in-law is slowly starved to death by the faimly. He has hung on for 13 days now. There is nothing wrong with him save for his brain condition, similar to Alzheimer's. Two siblings (in fact, the ones who spend the most time with him, and who physically care for him when the others won't or don't live nearby) protested the witholding of water from this man once he was unable to swallow (possibly following a stroke, but no one is sure and he is otherwise physically FINE.) The other siblings insisted that he be "allowed to die."
Anyway, the wife is talking excitedly about how she can't wait to move his big hospital bed out of their bedroom and get a full bed instead of the twin size she has now. I think the other ones are just tired of the emotional struggle of watching your father die slowly.
I guess what I am saying is, I have sympathy for people who want the suffering to end. I just can't believe we are going to settle life-and-death issues on the assumption that your loved ones know you and are sufficiently detached enough to always do what you would want.
I can't believe that society is willing to give murderers a ready made defense provided that their victim suffer some kind of ailment and thus would "not have wanted to live". Its only a matter of time before this is a frequent criminal defense.
The hospitals and doctors etc. want an excuse. Same as with "ethics committees." God forbid they should do their best, the right thing, have ethics. So now it's the health care proxy, the "family," the...etc. Then they pressure the "representative" and "loved ones" to do what they want -- have the person die. And enough people are unfit human beings ("loved ones") so that they know they can get away with it. The whole thing is a racket, with all the links in the chain cooperating, from "elder law" to "social work" to hospital to "senior specialist." The whole lot of them stink. The whole thing stinks.
And "family"? Since when can "family" be trusted just because they're "family." Sometimes they show up means the person might as well just ask for a pistol to put to their temple and get it over with, and a body bag, because that's how much help "family" can be sometimes. Hey, maybe that's why the hospitals and social workers know that if they want a patient dead, call a "meeting with family." Often the family is the LAST person the patient needs or even would want around.
So if the Canadian journalist is right, why has this culture lost its faith in life?
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