Mary Warnock: Legalise assisted suicide, for pity's sake

The death of Daniel James, the 23-year-old rugby player who visited a Swiss euthanasia clinic last month, is the most appalling burden his parents will ever have to bear, whether or not they are prosecuted, and whether or not they are sent to prison for what they did on his behalf.

They decided to believe him when he said that after he was paralysed in a scrum his life was of no value to him, and that he would prefer death. It was not a sudden decision but one taken over many months, during which he had shown, by attempting suicide, that he was in deadly earnest. They made a deliberate moral choice, and carried it out in what must have been an agonising journey to Switzerland. Their courage has been enormous; but it would be hard to deny that they acted unlawfully.

Not everyone faced with the life that Daniel James foresaw for himself would react in the same way. There are many stories of young people suffering similar injuries who have decided that their lives are still worth living, however limited their physical powers. But there are others who cannot stand the thought of forever being completely dependent on others, however loving. In their eyes, life in itself is not valuable, only the freedom and enjoyment that life gives. Daniel James had time to decide that without such freedom death would be better. It was this decision that his parents respected, allowing him his final freedom to choose

Assisted suicide is just one more step toward socialized medicine triage. Get rid of the weak, the old, and the infirm. Save the precious tax dollars for those who can and do contribute the most.

The fact is, assisted suicide is openly practiced on the elderly and the critically ill in the form of a morphine drip which slows down breathing and prevents the patient from fighting death. Sometimes the doctors are in too much of a hurry to administer the morphine.

I know from personal experience. Back in the nineties, I got a call from an emergency room doctor, who was telling me that my mother had been brought into the hospital after suffering a brain stem stroke and the doctor wanted permission to administer a morphine drip and put her out of her misery. He said she had zero chance of regaining consciousness. I said NO, not until I got there to see for myself. (Her doctor was out of town)The doctor practically begged me to ok the morphine drip, saying that they had to preserve the precious resources for younger patients, that I should consider the quality of life, that my mother had lived a good long life, and 89, it was time to let her go.

The doctor had already called all the relatives who lived in the area, but since it was Sunday morning, he had found no one at home except my sister’s twelve year old son, of whom the doctor had asked the same question.

I got there on Monday morning. My sister picked me up from the airport and we drove straight to the hospital. When I got there, my mother was intubated and restrained with her eyes closed, but when I spoke to her and told her I was there, she jerked her whole body and tried to respond. I called the nurse and told her that my mother was not in a coma and that she was understanding everything that I was saying. The nurse came over and told her to open her eyes, and she did so, but only after the nurse called her by her right name (they were calling her by the wrong name.)Then I asked the nurse why mother was restrained and had bruises all over both arms,(obviously from hands). The nurse said that my mother had been fighting them and wouldn’t let them give her the IV.

Did you ever hear of patient in a coma fighting the medication? Anyway, they stopped sedating her, took her out of intensive care and sent her home. She had not had a stroke, she had fallen on the stairs. When I complained about the call from the doctor, she said that she probably wouldn’t have died, anyway, because she was breathing just fine on her own.

There have been many holocausts, and there will be many more holocausts, but there is only one Holocaust.

The euthanasia decree, written on Adolf Hitler's personal stationery and dated 1 September 1939, reads as follows:

Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are charged with the responsibility for expanding the authority of physicians, to be designated by name, to the end that patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment of their state of health, can be granted a mercy death.

Yes, the Nazis really did engage in euthanasia. Surprise!

I'm always surprised to find people like you who don't know the basics about the Holocaust. It was one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the world. How could you not know about the T-4 Euthanasia Program?

After WWII, we hung Nazis for their crimes. We didn't hang them for being Germans, nor even for being Nazis. We would not have approved of their crimes if they'd been Americans. Yet we've raised generations of ignorant children who think the Nazis were hung for being Nazis, and they never engaged in crimes which these ignorant children don't think should be crimes to begin with.

The Holocaust was wrong because of what was done, not because of who did it. The mass murder of innocents is still wrong, even if Americans do it. Blaming the victims and accusing them of bringing it upon themselves may give you false cover, but it doesn't make it right.

yeah, but depressed people change their mind especially if you treat the depression.

Suicide after devestating accidents is a common impulse, but with family support and psychiatric counseling (and sometimes medicines) one can accept the disability.

For a depressed kid to say: I want to die, (meaning I don’t want to burden my parents) and then have the parents say: OK we’ll help you, sends a message that by dying he’s doing them a favor...

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