Posted on 08/31/2006 4:53:19 PM PDT by wagglebee
PENTICTON, British Colombia, August 31, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An elderly man shot his wife and then ended his own life in a murder-suicide at Penticton Regional Hospital Tuesday afternoon, in a murder-suicide referred to as an “act of compassion” by media reports. John McCadden was 77—his 80-year-old wife, Lorna McCadden, had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers disease the previous week, the Globe and Mail reported.
While such tragic cases are frequently tagged as “mercy killings” by the media, in fact such killings are rarely motivated by compassion, Alex Schadenberg, executive director of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told LifeSiteNews.com.
“The pro-euthanasia people have been spelling out a new theory, and the media has bought it,” Schadenberg said. “The theory is that if you legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide, you wouldn’t have these types of murder-suicides. These terrible acts of ‘love’ wouldn’t happen, if people had another option, they say”.
“Well, that type of myth has got to be exposed for what it is. These violent acts are based out of deep depressive conditions, or they are the act of someone who has been a controlling person all their life, and that is their attempt to control the situation.”
Schadenberg referred to a U.S. study on murder-suicides, published in the March 2005 issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry by Malphurs and Cohen, which found that in fact most homicide-suicides of older persons are not “mercy” killings.
“In fact, this ‘mercy-killing’ perception is a myth,” said the authors. “The husbands in such cases are often abusers, and the wives are rarely complicit. In many such cases, defense wounds indicate that the wife fought for her life.”
The study found that many spouses suffer depression and mental breakdown due to the care demands and life changes related to an ailing spouse. The authors suggested that providing better care to both the ailing spouse and the physically healthy spouse could prevent many tragic murder-suicides.
Schadenberg agreed, saying Canada’s health care system needs to address the care needs of both spouses if such tragedies are going to be prevented.
“What our health care system has to be more concerned about is the mental health of the spouse of the person who is going through a life-threatening or debilitating disease. A lot of people find themselves in a situation where they are all alone. They find themselves very lonely, they find themselves abandoned, and they lose it. I think that is more likely to precipitate [violence] than anything else.”
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
BC COUPLE MURDER DISABLED SON AND COMMIT SUICIDE
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2002/jan/02010403.html
My sympathy to you about the nursing home operators stealing your money. Knowing how the universe works, they'll be finding out that "what goes around, comes around".
I'm sorry about your sister. That is very sad.
ping
"what goes around, comes around"
One can hope. I just think most of the homes treat old people more like animals in a kennel. They don't show very much respect to them.
My gosh, her Alzheimers started at forty? That's just tragic. I hope and pray a cure is found soon. I don't think that diseases that mainly affect the elderly are a real priority, though, do you? They're all too busy trying to cure AIDS, a self-inflicted disease.
Early onset Alzhiemer's happens fairly often. In our family alone it's about 25% of the females. The youngest ever documented (that I know of) started at age 25. I believe it's a genetic thing. I took care of my sister until the last 3 years when it was no longer safe for her to remain at home. But, when we finally had her admitted to the Veterans Home I was stunned how many younger Alzheimer's patients they had. On the floor of 18 patients, 4 were under 60, and 2 of them were under 50.
I do hope research helps prevent that illness, regardless of age. There are many horrible diseases I am sure will be knocked out in the future. AIDS does take a tremendous amount of money out of play in research. One thing I try to look at is that sometimes, a cure for an unrelated disease is found inadvertantly while researching a different one. And, they learn various mechanisms about all diseases that can make cures more attainable. So, although AIDS may be self-inflicted in many cases, it is such a complicated illness, much is being learned that is applicable to other illnesses, too.
How the money is prioritized for various research grants is quite political, and with that I will agree 100%. I also agree that often times euthinasia is committed for convenience, not mercy. The future looks bleak to me on that last one. One is a matter of discovery, the latter is a mind set. The "right" to die will soon become a "duty" to die. I don't like that.
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