Mercy Killing?

In the last couple of weeks there have been a couple of news stories that have interested me. I mentioned months ago that I thought euthanasia should be legal, or at least not legislated against, which is basically the same. However given recent cases highlighting the issue of consent, I feel the need to clarify my position.

The cases I’m referring to are the deaths of Thomas Inglis and Lynn Gilderdale by their respective mothers. Both deaths actually happened in 2008, but they have only just been resolved in court. Frances Inglis was given a life sentence with a minimum of nine year, whereas Bridget Gilderdale was cleared of the charge of attempted murder. Despite this seeming contradiction, I broadly agree with both of these verdicts. Although the sentence is questionable, Mrs Inglis acted immorally, whereas Mrs Gilderdale was perfectly within her right to do what she did.

The difference between these two cases is consent. Thomas Inglis had brain damage and was unable to make the choice of whether or not he wanted to die, Lynn Gilderdale was desperate to end her life. Frances Inglis too her son’s will into her own hands, where as Bridget Gilderdale was acting in accordance with her daughters wishes. Lynn wanted to die and we should not begrudge her to right because she is unable to do it herself. No-one could have known whether Thomas wanted to die or not, and even if he did, his mother had no right to take his life into her own hands, even if it was out of sympathy.

What makes the Inglis case even worse is that the doctors said Thomas would recover. Mrs Inglis refused to believe this and took her own, subjective and uninformed opinion. She might have been acting out of compassion, but it was out misguided and ill-judged compassion, based not on reasoned judgment, but on gut instinct and blind ignorance. She murdered her own son out of a misplaced sense of pity.

Thomas Inglis was in a vegetative state having fallen out of an ambulance following a pub fight. He could not communicate with anyone or even move. Obviously this is a thoroughly unpleasant way of living, indeed it barely represents a life at all, but it was not permanent. His condition was not terminal, despite what his mother chose to believe. It is another case altogether to be in a vegetative state from which one can never recover, and, while this explains Mrs Inglis’ actions, it does not make them any more excusable. Thomas Inglis had a poor quality of life, but he would recover and potentially lead a pretty normal life. He was robbed of this opportunity by his mother, claiming to be acting in his best interest.

Inglis was wrong to do as she did and should be punished accordingly. Killing someone without their consent, even out of compassion, is murder. One cannot take the life of another into one’s own hands, no matter the circumstances. She may not be guilty of malicious intent, but she is guilty of acting purely out of passion and instinct, not reasoned consideration. Her unthinking, ill-judged actions cost her son his life; a life which could have gone on for many years had it not been cut short.

Contrast this with Mrs Gilderdale’s actions. Her daughter had repeatedly expressed the desire to die and had even attempted suicide in the past. She was entirely conscious and capable of making a decision about her own life. Her ME had caused her great suffering over 17 years, through which her mother had given her constant support. She had begged her not to take her life, but when it became apparent that Lynn was desperate to end the pain, she reluctantly conceded to help her. She acted out of the same compassion and love as Mrs Inglis, but she did it with reluctance and only with the consent of her daughter.

Both of these cases are tragic, but in one the right thing was done and in the other, the wrong. The law must make a distinction between these cases and has done. Mrs Gilderdale is innocent of any immoral act, and the ruling reflects this, Mrs Inglis is guilty of murder and her sentence reflects this. While Euthanasia should not be legislated against, killing someone without their consent must be.

Right to die?

This week in Bournemouth almost 100 people attended a suicide workshop run by an Australian doctor called Philip Nitschke, which is really hard to spell.  Dr Nitschke is the founder of the right-to-die organisation, Exit and is famous for helping four people to die Northern Territory, Australia in 1996. He recently came to the UK to run a series of suicide workshops so that anyone who is particularly bored with life can go along and find out the most efficient way of ridding the world of their depressed existence. Actually the workshops are only open to the seriously ill or elderly, so the Emos will have to work it out for themselves, which is unfortunate because most of them lack the basic initiative to hurl themselves from a suitably high building.

Inevitably the arrival of the doctor with the hard-to-spell name has caused some controversy; he was initially barred from entering the country under the Immigration and Asylum Act until the blundering morons at the Home Office realised that he was neither an immigrant, nor seeking asylum, nor did he pose a serious through to our safety, and allowed him entry into the country. Nonetheless fears still remain over the effect he may have on people who attend his workshops; someone might end up committing suicide, which is exactly the point of the exercise. I guess people like Alex Russell, the vicar of Pennington and chaplain of Oak Haven Hospice in Lymington, Hampshire forgot that the workshops are voluntary, so they’re only going to effect people who would consider suicide anyway and want to know the best way to do it. (By the way Alex Russell, the vicar of Pennington and chaplain of Oak Haven Hospice in Lymington, Hampshire is quoted on the BBC website and I couldn’t be arsed to find someone more noteworthy to quote at you.)

It’s hardly surprising that Doctor Nitschke has caused such controversy given people’s misgivings about assisted suicide. It seems that, although killing yourself is just rather sad, helping someone else kill themselves is some strangely sadistic act of murder. Apparently someone who is able to kill himself has more of a right to die that someone who can’t, simply by virtue of the fact that they don’t need any help. It seems very odd to me that people do not accept that people with a serious and extremely painful illness cannot have any help in ending their lives when they want to, rather than waiting for death to slowly and painfully arrive. Fortunately we seem to be in the middle of a u-turn in public opinion; a few months ago the parents of a man were acquitted of assisted suicide after taking their son, who had been crippled in a rugby accident and was paralyzed from the neck downwards, to Dignitas in Switzerland to commit suicide. Given this and the decision to allow Doctor Nitschke to run his suicide workshops, it seems apparent to me that people are warming to the idea that, just because you are unable to kill yourself, you should be forced to live a life of pain and suffering until you finally snuff it of natural causes.

It is absurd to me that the law essentially forces people to continue living when they just don’t want to, simply because they are unable to kill themselves. The law is there solely to protect our basic human rights, it is not there to dictate what we can and cannot do with our lives. While some restrictions must be placed on our action when they infringe upon other’s rights, what we do with out private lives is not the prerogative of some busy-body government official. Euthanasia is usually committed with the consent of the person who is being killed; they have chosen to end their lives, they just need help doing it. By illegalising Euthanasia the government is essentially infringing on our basic human right to choose; in this case to choose when to die.

It is the case with far too many of our laws that they try to dictate to us what we can and cannot do in our private lives. The role of law is not to set a moral code of society; it is to allow all members of society to live by their own moral code. This necessarily means that the government must protect each individual’s right to live as they will by stopping people from impinging on this right, but this is the extent to which the government should be able to dictate our behaviour. It should not be able to stop people from committing suicide. It should not be able to stop people from helping loved ones to die in dignity. It should not be able to stop people from giving workshops on how to kill oneself and it should not stop people from attending them.