Posted on 02/06/2010 9:19:34 AM PST by reaganaut1
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In the 1960s, when the first right-to-die organizations began helping terminally ill people end their lives in Switzerland, the Swiss gave broad support to a practice widely viewed as a personal choice. Backed by the world's most liberal right-to-die laws, assisted-suicide groups have since then quietly helped thousands kill themselves.
Lately, the increasingly controversial activities of Dignitas and its founder, Ludwig Minelli, are pushing even the famously tolerant Swiss too far, prompting calls for changes in the nation's assisted-suicide law.
Mr. Minelli has long played the agent provocateur of Switzerland's right-to-die movement, most notably because his group helps the lion's share of foreigners who come to Switzerland seeking to end their lives.
At first glance, Mr. Minelli seems an unlikely hardliner in the right-to-die movement. An avuncular 77-year-old, he favors thick cardigans and sandals worn over heavy socks and collects kitschy teapots. But his vision is a radical one, going well beyond helping the terminally ill to shorten their suffering.
Instead, he argues that anyone—the chronically ill, the mentally ill or those who are simply tired of living—deserves help to end it all. He has faced criticism over everything from the fees Dignitas charges to the places where it assists suicides to the means it has used to enable some deaths.
"We have to accept that even healthy people have reasonable motives to end their lives," Mr. Minelli said in an interview. He reels off case law supporting his argument that the choice to die is a basic human right and frequently blasts right-to-life groups as "hypocrites." He said he isn't bothered by critics who say his organization goes too far: "Let the stupid people talk."
From the start, Mr. Minelli has kicked up controversy for his willingness to help foreigners die. [...] Dignitas only helps foreigners.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Yeah, well. He got his name in the papers, which is, I suspect, what he was really looking for.
Interesting. He has devoted at least part of his life to death.
No kidding this is disgusting. There are people who are emotionally unstable and could easily be pushed by others to do themselves in. Money and greed could play a big roll in that.
Another person doing the devils work, out to kill, steal and destroy.
Many years ago there was a movie or TV show about an out of the way, rural small town in England, I believe, where, for a substantial price, a person could lure an enemy there, then openly murder them. Everyone in the town would get a cut from the money, on condition that they not report the murder.
The murder would be scheduled, so that everyone in the otherwise normal town would go inside and lock their doors and windows, leaving the victim on the street with their killer. Once the killing was done, and the body and evidence removed, then the town would go back to normal, as if nothing had happened.
I remember that everyone in the town had rationalized the murders in their own way. Endless excuses to justify their income.
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