Comments on: Mercy Killing?

By: Gloria Smudd

Gloria Smudd — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:47:03 +0000

I’ve just watched Terry Pratchett’s Richard Dimbleby Lecture. I applaud the way he has put his argument together. Well said, that man, to stand back and let Tony Robinson (Baldrick) read his (Terry’s ) measured argument for what he insists is assisted-death (rather than my term assisted-suicide), staring the extinction of his own mind in the face but spending what’s left of his functioning brain writing the only cohesive patient-based argument yet broadcast which argues convincingly in favour of ‘assisted death’.

I give Terry Pratchett a round of applause and even suspend my lifelong dislike of Tony Robinson who seems to have read from the autocue to Sir Terry’s approval.

This is a huge topic and I can’t say more this evening than to thank Mme Raccoon for her terrierish worrying of the subject. It’s a subject which should be worried by a blog-terrier and a subject which deserves comment.

So, again, I sign of with the word: Discuss…. Please do.

By: Gloria Smudd

Gloria Smudd — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:46:34 +0000

Below are excerpts copied from ‘Suicide – the uneasy option’ (this site, 04.09.09) because I cannot write my thoughts on the subject any more clearly than I did for this piece.
…
What our society should now properly debate is that, for some, the prospect of humiliating physical helplessness is an emotional ordeal more terrifying than the fearful option of planning and competently achieving one

By: Alan

Alan — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:47:55 +0000

“Every Tom, Dick and Harry Shipman would be sticking needles in arms and doing whatever it takes to get their hands on the inheritance.”

And your organs.

By: The Slogger

The Slogger — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:58:15 +0000

I’m in favour of Euthenasia. But not in the culture we have the UK at the moment. Every Tom, Dick and Harry Shipman would be sticking needles in arms and doing whatever it takes to get their hands on the inheritance.
It doesn’t matter how abuse-bombproof you try and make it, where there’s a will (living or otherwise) there’s an argument – and where there’s a legacy, in Cruel Britannia there’ll be some greedy toe-rag convinced he or she is ‘titled to der money, innit?
The only winners, as ever, will be the lawyers.

By: Anna Raccoon

Anna Raccoon — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:43:15 +0000

The media treatment seemed to be doing its level best to blur the distinction between murder and euthansia too…

By: Gloria Smudd

Gloria Smudd — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:28:46 +0000

Precisely. A terminally-ill patient should, if it is their own determined decision, be able to document legally the intention to end their life at a time of their choosing and to request the assistance of a physician. At present, a patient couldn’t even raise the subject with a trusted GP because the GP simply wouldn’t be able to discuss it. Far better I believe that, following the initial consultation between patient and doctor, it was possible to refer the case to a tribunal for the medical prognosis to be confirmed and the independence of the patient’s decision to be legally established.

I agree with you that media treatment of the two recent ‘mercy killing’ cases served only to blur the important distinction between assisted-suicide and euthanasia.

By: Anna Raccoon

Anna Raccoon — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:55:01 +0000

I agree Glo, that would fulfil my requirement of objective and dispassionate – so long as it is only to ‘document’ their wishes and not to give permission….

By: Gloria Smudd

Gloria Smudd — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:49:01 +0000

Sir Terry Pratchett is giving The Richard Dimbleby Lecture (tonight, BBC1-10.35pm) in which he is likely to call for the formation of a tribunal system within which people wishing to secure physician-assisted suicide may make their case and document their wishes. This strikes me as a logical and practical suggestion.

By: Adam Collyer

Adam Collyer — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:08:30 +0000

This is what happens once you start down the slippery slope of accepting the legality of killing. It would have been better, in my view, not to have legalised suicide, let alone euthanasia.

By: PT Barnum

PT Barnum — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:11:50 +0000

This post is the most intelligent thing on this subject I have read for a very long time. The key here for me is informed consent. If the would-be suicide is fully and completely in charge of the process, and would do it themselves if they could but require physical assistance, then who has the right the prevent them? Tom Inglis could not and did not ask for or consent to his murder. Mrs Gilderdale was responding to her daughter’s firmly articulated desire and completing a process her daughter had begun.

The one Dignitas case which made the headlines in the UK which disturbs me involves the clinically depressed couple who both wished to die. I can only see their ability to give informed consent as seriously compromised and there were no physical reasons why they could not end their own lives themselves.

By: JohnRS

JohnRS — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:52:46 +0000

This is indeed a complex area.

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of legalised assisted suicide for a minute, one of my major concerns is that when the state (ie doctors etc) decides you should “be allowed to die” as your quality of life is very poor their solution is actually to starve you to death, or more likely force you to die of thirst. This seems to me an incredibly barbaric act. If someone other than the state did this to you they would be tried for murder and the details of your evil and callous act spread across the tabloids.

If it’s OK for this person to die, then why is it not ok to have some legally sanctioned way of making the process painless and a lot more rapid? (This is, of course, code for euthanasia). Seems as if the state wants to have the right to make the decision but not face up to the consequences.

By: FTAC Watch

FTAC Watch — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:36:26 +0000

Euthanasia for the terminally unemployed, like me, should be available.

I would welcome the opportunity of being helped to die. I find that I cannot do it on my own. I would rather die with minimal pain, distress and in a dignified way where the results can be cleaned up with little fuss (burn me with the rest of the clinical waste will do fine). The alternative is that I do it alone at home, in pain and with the distinct possibility of great suffering as I try to get it right. I live alone without any contact with anyone so my body will not be discovered until it is in an advanced state of decay.

Of course, I would rather live and be a productive member of society. If I was allowed to work, I would be a higher rate tax payer too. However, the government has other ideas and I am now permanently excluded from working. I am condemned to spend the rest of my life in poverty and squalor. The only alternatives the government has for me is some form of prison either regular or mental.

It is all such a waste; all I ever wanted to do was to earn a living in peace.