Posted on 04/04/2009 2:44:27 PM PDT by NYer
London, England (LifeNews.com) -- The founder of Dignitas, the pro-euthanasia group that operates the Switzerland-based euthanasia clinic, has revealed plans to kill a healthy woman in an assisted suicide. Backers of the practice claim they want suicides for terminally ill patients and the elderly, but they are pushing the envelope even further.
Ludwig Minelli calls killing a healthy patient a "marvelous opportunity" and says assisted suicide should no longer be reserved for the disabled or very ill patients.
The Dignitas clinic has killed more than 100 people and reports from Zurich University indicate at least 20 percent of them were not terminally ill. But Minelli isn't concerned about that.
“It is not a condition to have a terminal illness,” he said.
“Terminal illness is a British obsession. As a human rights lawyer I am opposed to the idea of paternalism. We do not make decisions for other people. We should have a nicer attitude to suicide, saying suicide is a very good possibility to escape," he added.
He told the London Times that anyone with the “mental capacity” should be allowed to have an assisted suicide. Minelli also plans to ask the Swiss courts to allow a Canadian couple to die who want to end their lives together.
“The husband is ill, his partner is not ill, but she told us here in my living room that, ‘If my husband goes, I would go at the same time with him’,” he said.
Minelli admitted that some of the people he has killed are mentally ill -- people who should have received mental health help not suicide. That is resulting in local mental health professionals and officials looking down on his suicide clinic.
“We have some problems because all the Swiss organizations of psychiatrists have told the public that they will not make such reports,” he said. “If we would have a psychiatrist from the UK giving an extended report, then no problems.”
Patricia Hewitt, a former Health Secretary, told the Times she doesn't support allowing healthy people or the mentally ill to kill themselves at the Switzerland clinic.
“I don't think that would be an adequate safeguard for somebody suffering from a psychiatric illness,” she said. “That’s why it would be much better to have a British law on this issue.”
Even Sarah Wootton, the chief executive of Dignity in Dying, the group seeking to legalize the practice in England, is opposed to killing people who are not terminally ill.
And a spokesman for Care Not Killing, a campaign opposed to any weakening of the law on euthanasia or assisted suicide, said Minelli's comments show why any legalization of assisted dying would open a “Pandora’s box of nightmare scenarios”.
“Once the border on assisted suicides is opened it will be impossible to close,” he said. “It would have huge public policy consequences for the plight of people who are terminally ill, very old or suffering from mental illness.”
Wesley J. Smith, an American bioethicist, commented on Minelli's desire to kill healthy people.
"I don't know why anyone would be surprised by this story," he says.
"Assisted suicide advocacy rests on two fundamental ideological premises: First, that we own our bodies and it is the 'ultimate civil liberty' to decide on the time, manner, and place of our own demise," he said. "Second, that killing is an acceptable answer to the problem of human suffering."
"Once these values are accepted, preventing death on demand becomes logically unsustainable," he added.
Although other assisted suicide advocates opposed Minelli, Smith says he's more representative of what the euthanasia movement wants than they care to admit.
"Minelli is not a fringe player, he is just more honest then some of his other brethren and sistren in the euthanasia movement," he says.
"Death on demand for anyone with a non transitory desire to die is either the goal of the movement--or, given its ideological premises--is the inevitable ultimate outcome of assisted suicide advocacy," he adds.
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What a piece of propaganda this is! Whew. How are they killing someone if it’s suicide?!?
Good for Dignitas.
Yep...once you start respecting peoples' rights and treating them with respect, they might not be so easy to control! Someday, they'll be wanting liberty! >gasp!<
Do not confuse freedom with loonietarianism, liberty with license.
Our forefathers frowned on suicide, except perhaps on a battlefield in a no-win situation, as simply cowardly.
IMHO, if you have the cohones to off yourself without taking anyone with you, it's your choice. I see no reason why any clinic nor government agency should be involved.
Flame suit on.
I thought the whole point of assisted suicide was to help people who were incapacitated and could not physically do it themselves. This puts the lie to that...
At one time, yes suicide was considered a crime.
Attitudes softened later to presume it to be a manifestation of mental illness.
In both cases it was acknowledged as unambiguously wrong and undesirable.
The grand modern aberration is that of Indignitas. Like Planned Barrenhood they will not even make an effort to talk their pigeon out of what she is looking for.
Hence the "slippery slope" alert. It was the same way with abortion - "only in rare instances and only in the first trimester. Contraception will prevent abortion." Now abortion is legal right up until the baby has reached full term and it's head has entered the birth canal. Then they insert scissors and suck out its brain.
When will people wake up to reality. The first step in 'legalizing' something is nothing more than a ruse to accomplish a pre-established but unspoken goal. IVF was legalized to help infertal couples have a baby. What was the result? Millions of frozen embryos - humans like you and me - left to die in a frozen wasteland. Is it any wonder Obama has now freed them up to be used for eperimentation. Who knows what they children might have become!
I am unsure where I stand on the issue of assisted suicide where the subject is fully compos mentis. I tend to be of the view that life is sacred and suicide is therefore wrong. Scripture does not specifically give Christians to commit suicide: I can think of only two instances in the New Testament when the subject is canvassed at all. Judas Iscariot committed suicide and by so doing preempted being forgiven in the same manner that St Peter was (Judas for betrayal and St Peter for denial). And the Philippian Gaoler was prevented from taking his own life when he discovered St Paul had been released. Neither circumstance specifically say “Thou Shalt Not”...
Suicide is less cut-and-dried than Abortion, which is clearly and undeniably Evil.
If someone is suffering, whether physically or mentally, enough to want to choose death, who are we to deny them.
If they really want it, they will do it anyway.
This is not on the same level as abortion, as that involves an innocent life with no choice.
If I am ever suffering to the point that I want to die, I’d like to have at least as many rights as my dog.
I should just shush up and wait for you to post.
Good Morning.
:-)
Your point is well taken and understood. I consider suicide the ultimate sin, in every religion.
However, we have all read stories of people that decided it was their time to go.......either mentally or physically. I won't attempt to judge them.
Agreed.
Christian forefathers didn’t. They saw it as a way to get to their Lord faster, which is why they often jumped from cliffs.
Heck, there were even saints who committed suicide...that’s why Augustine had to make the little exception for saints.
It’s not all that difficult. A bag with some dry ice in it would do the trick. What these folks want is the social nod instead of the shaking head.
Are you kidding? The State owns you...how DARE you make your own decision about your life?
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