The Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas has drawn some intense scrutiny this week after facilitating the death of a 23-year old rugby player who suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralysed.
The Times reports that from the lake near the current Dignitas premises, large quantities of bone fragments have been washed up. They are thought to be from leaking crematorium urns disposed of in the lake by Dignitas.
The report highlights the organisation’s lack of transparency, and the director’s approach to his euthanasia work, which a retired Swiss doctor describes as “all about his power over life and death”
and states that “so little about about the workings of Dignitas matches its idealised image.”
The truth is that however efficiently Dignitas is or isn’t run, Dignitas will never represent a dignified death. Real dignity cannot be achieved by society believing that an individual is better off dead, but can only be achieved by society fighting for the best care and support for the individual, as a way of demonstrating the value society places on that individual. That means better funding of hospice care nationally, more support for people with disabilities and support for families and carers.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Your comment that real dignity cannot be achieved by society believing that an individual is “better off dead” is valueless.
This is because society does not believe a person is “better off dead” – society either allows assisted suicide or legislates against it; it is the individual who decides whether he/she is “better off dead”.
Despite all the good-will and efforts by dedicated nursing and caring, society is not yet advanced enough to prevent the more horrendous effects of some diseases. That is why, despite the views expressed by starry-eyed people from comfortable armchairs, when a certain point is reached in hospitals and hospices the level of medication administered towards the end allows the patient, thank god, to slip away in peace – and with dignity. But the principle of assistance in hastening the end is no different.
The point here is that you cannot attempt to equalise everyone’s response to suffering. Some are more stoical than others, and can bear with fortitude a condition which another person of a different temperament is unable to bear. We are all made differently and respond differently to our conditions.
I read of a hospitalised terminal cancer case not so long ago, concerning a man who had reached a stage where he was vomiting his own faeces.
I can’t speak for others of course, but in circumstances such as those I would bless anyone who would help me release myself from such suffering.
D.S.Lieberman
November 4th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Dear D.S.Lieberman
Thank you for your comment.
You appear to misunderstand the pro-life position. We strongly support palliative care and medical care to relieve suffering.
There is a massive difference between treating pain with medication which has the inadvertent effect of hastening death, and deliberating causing death. The first is acceptable and the second is not.
It is impossible for anyone to say with certainty that someone should die, and even the individual who wishes to die, may change their mind.
With medical advances, it should always be possible to relieve suffering. The advances in medical research are incredible, and a condition which someone feels is hopeless now, may be treatable in the near future. Until those cures are available, everything possible should be done to ensure that the sick are as comfortable as possible.
As a society, we should ensure that palliative care receives proper funding and resources. The danger is that medical research and resources for palliative care could be limited if society sees euthanasia as an option.
It is impossible to frame a law for euthanasia that would allow euthanasia to exist without allowing people to be killed against their will. In the Netherlands where euthanasia is legal, there is a high number of cases of involuntary euthanasia, where the patient did not express any wish to die.
The whole ethos of hospitals is caring for the sick. The sick are uniquely vulnerable, and we should not turn hospitals into places where people can be killed.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:28 am
I have nursed sick and elderly people for the past 13 years. In more recent years a few very frail people have said “I should be put down”. On each occasion the statement was posed almost as a question. It was in no way an expression of their desire to die. It was very clearly an elderly, helpless person responding to our society’s view of the weak and sick as a burden.
The pro-euthanasia movement totally overlooks how our elderly and sick people will feel if our society decides that euthanasia is an acceptable – even honourable – way to deal with illness. There are currently large numbers of elderly grandparents having to spend hundreds of pounds per week on nursing care. And in a society that embraces euthanasia, how many of those elderly people will start to feel guilty for spending the inheritance that their children would otherwise receive, on their care needs? How soon before ‘staying alive’ will be viewed as selfishness.
I fear for vulnerable members of our society. Euthanasia is not about the Diane Pretty’s of our world. It is about the millions of elderly and ill people who would no longer been seen as valuable for simply being human, but would rather feel that they are a burden on society. And that they have a “duty to die”.
December 11th, 2008 at 8:55 am
It came as a huge relief to me that Craig Ewart in the Sky programme was so lucid and articulate, because then no-one can challenge the validity of HIS decision.
Frankly, I think it is nothing but vile arrogance to try and stop people like Craig from doing what they want, when they want.
Of course, there needs to be protection for those who might be pressured, but our legal system has faced and dealt with more difficult issues. So I do not share the concern that this would be some charter for bumping off inconvenient relatives.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:02 am
If I were in the young rugby-player’s postion, I hope that I would have his courage too.
The most basic of our human-rights should be the right to say “enough is enough; no more pain or suffering” The end result is death anyway, so why not fast-forward past the pain, the indignity of incontinence and the embarrasment of having to rely on others for out most basic needs?
I thank God that Switzerland has recognised this.
February 6th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Euthanasia is murder, pure and simple.
August 27th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
How can people object to the legalisation of euthanasia?
It’s like abortion: If you don’t want it, don’t have it. But let it be legal so others are free to choose.
I work in the medical field and when people object to euthanasia and assisted suicide, i remind them it happens every day. Quietly, undercover, but it happens. Ever increasing amounts of opioids given to terminal cancer patients are just one example. They may releave pain but they also hasten death. Yet nobody objects to that.
What’s the difference with assisted suicide? Well, it is slow, it is unpleasant, opioids can depress breathing meaning people slowly asphyxiate. And yet that seems more acceptable that one lethal drink taken by a person who has decided they are ready to go. Why?
Is it also very annoying when people answer ‘Well if it already happens, why do we need more legislation? If people are ok to turn a blind eye, where’s the problem?’
The problem is that any doctor giving out those prescriptions could very well get done. They have no protection, no justification for their actions and it is not fair to expect them to work in this way.
September 16th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Laura, the reason euthanasia and assisted suicide are currently illegal is to protect the rights of sick (not necessarily dying) people. Family members and the NHS have vested interests: the former unable to cope with the grief and wanting it ‘over’, and the latter concerned with budgets and staffing in a hospital situation which is not designed to cope with dying patients.
I am aware from personal experience with a family member of how euthanasia by the back door has arrived – in the form of withdrawing fluids. It was a gruesome death, very unlike those I have seen who have died with palliative care in a hospice. I believe the answer is NHS funding for hospices (my local children’s hospice gets NO government funding at all). Why are hospices reliant on charity – this can’t be right.