Posted on 10/20/2014 10:50:40 AM PDT by wagglebee
A long-term pro-euthanasia campaigner has starved herself to death over five weeks because she could not have her life ended legally.
Jean Davies, 86, did not suffer from a terminal illness but said her life had become ‘intolerable’ after a series of fainting spells. She died at home in Oxford on 1 October after giving an extensive interview to the Sunday Times.
Mrs Davies became involved in the right-to-die campaign as far back as the 1970s and was president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies from 1990 to 1992 and was chair of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society UK (now Dignity in Dying).
In 1997, her book Choice in Dying argued for British law to allow doctors to end their patients’ lives. According to her daughter she died peacefully and was ‘smiling at everyone’ the day before.
I was asked to comment on this story by the Sunday Times and my comments have been picked up in several follow up accounts in other papers (eg. Times, Express, Guardian, Daily Mail).
Essentially here, we have a long-time euthanasia campaigner attempting to use her own death to further the cause she has championed throughout her life.
Ironically her own daughter said in an interview that her case proves those who want to die already have power to take their own lives and that the law therefore does not need to be changed.
Her GP, a Christian who does not believe in assisted dying, told the Sunday Times he had treated her symptoms after consulting his defence union.
The full quote I gave the Sunday Times is below. They chose to major on the part about ‘emotional blackmail’ and not to include the reference to Helga Kuhse. But Kuhse’s comments deserve wider circulation:
‘It is not illegal to starve and dehydrate oneself to death but neither is it right. My fear is that this unusual and tragic case will be seized upon by the pro-euthanasia lobby to further their agenda of legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia.
It is the same technique used by Helga Kuhse, then President of the World Federation of Societies for the Right to Die at their 5th Biennial Congress on the Right to Die held in Nice, France, September 1984 when she said, ’If we can get people to accept the removal of all treatment and care – especially the removal of all food and fluids – they will see what a painful way this is to die and then, in the patient’s best interests, they will accept the lethal injection.’
We should recognise this ploy for what it is and reject it. However we might sympathise with this woman’s condition, by deliberating choosing to go public with it she is adopting a campaigning stance in the footsteps of Kuhse. It is, if you like, a subtle form of emotional blackmail aimed at softening opposition to a change in the law to allow assisted suicide or euthanasia.
There are good reasons for keeping the law as it is. Any change in the law to allow assisted suicide or euthanasia would place pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives for fear of being a financial, emotional or care burden upon others. This would especially affect people who are disabled, elderly, sick or depressed.
The present law making assisted suicide and euthanasia illegal is clear and right and does not need changing. The penalties it holds in reserve act as a strong deterrent to exploitation and abuse whilst giving discretion to prosecutors and judges in hard cases.
Persistent requests for euthanasia are extremely rare if people are properly cared for so our priority must be to ensure that good care addressing people’s physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs is accessible to all.’
LifeNews.com Note: Dr. Peter Saunders is a doctor and the CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a British organization with 4,500 doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. This article originally appeared on his blog. He is also associated with the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK.
Should have been crowd not could. Sorry
It was a crucial 44 seconds.
She’s dead, Jim.
My grandmother was a death-cultist (Hemlock Society book was in our house) and eventually took her own life.
I figure it was a bad move, and I intend that it be someone else that takes me out.
Dang. She failed to win the Darwin Award.
Good for you Laz and run like a banshee, out of hades, while avoiding that Angel of Death.
My pleasure - I’m not a big fan of emotional blackmail.
Exactly! Euthanasia/liberals are insane. The problem is they are in positions of power over those that are sane!
Somewhere, within this article, there appears a message for Ferguson crazies of another idiot being worshipped by the Ferguson, MO. crowd as that crowd is assisting their own suicide while screaming for government to help them. Is as is said ... Can’t fix stupid!
The good news is she finally reached her Weight Watcher’s goal...
Look at this, where I grew up NYC, the liberal sewer hole of the east coast: 10 SCHOOL KIDS killed themselves in 2014 alone and this was back in 2014 so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s double that now. When the hell has that ever happened? The kids can’t stand the indoctrination
http://nypost.com/2014/03/23/student-suicides-on-the-rise-in-recent-weeks/
:)
Well..... Bye!
Sure, you'll live an extra 10 years. But you don't get to choose which 10. You get to be old, arthritic, going to doctor's appointments and constantly taking prescription pills out of those little one week at a time pill dispensers for an extra 10 years. Congratulations!
The only good thing about old age is that you get to say crude things to cute young waitresses and they won't slap you. Oh, and great parking spaces!
That’s what I was thinking. It is much quicker though more painful if she didn’t have water. Weeks still, but much less than five. However, if she couldn’t handle fainting spells, I doubt she could have handled that sort of pain.
Who’s got the picture of the guy in the sombrero? “well...bye!”
Four weeks into her fast, Jean Davies, 86, told The Sunday Times: “It is hell. I can’t tell you how hard it is. You wouldn’t decide this unless you thought your life was going to be so bad. It is intolerable.”***
So I think what really happened is that she started with just stopping eating, and when that didn't produce her quick death, she realized she had to stop fluids also. At that point, the pain became so intense that she summoned her GP to give her something to alleviate her symptoms, ie. pain, and he gave her morphine for that, but he had to give her a small overdose so that she would stop breathing.
some problems just seem to solve themselves....
She died doing what she loved. (ducking)
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