St. Vincent - Crookes, Sheffield at 40 Pickmere Road, Crookes, Sheffield, South Yorkshire S10 1GY UK - Assisted suicide (Article by Fr Paddy)
|
Assisted suicide (Article by Fr Paddy)
|
Are we going to do the same thing to the unwanted old that we do to unwanted babies? That is to say, are we going to kill lots of them off, and pretend that this is just fine?
I think so. The only question is how we will do it, and what we will call it.
Aborted babies are slaughtered by the tens of thousands, solely because they are inconvenient to young, busy people.
Old, ill parents are also going to become a major nuisance to the same generation, very soon indeed. Baby boomers are all secretly terrified that mum or dad will end up wasting away slowly in a care home, rapidly consuming their inheritance.
Could this be why the argument for legalising ‘assisted suicide’ is becoming so strident? We are offered lots of weepy hard cases, where terribly ill people are desperate to die and their relatives insist they should be able to help them without any risk of prosecution.
It appears to me that if the people involved are 'moved by compassion' in assisting someone to die they will have little to fear from an investigation. They will be acquitted, even if they are charged. Only those whose motives are suspect are at any risk. That seems to be implied in the DPP guidelines, published recently.This is why we are asked to admire the rather creepy suicide pact of Sir Edward and Lady Downes, as if it is some sort of act of heroism rather than a sad and squalid snuffing out of life in a Swiss back street.
These hard cases and emotional scenes are the equivalent of the old argument for abortion, that if you didn’t fully legalise it people would go to dangerous amateurs and die horribly. In fact, abortion in dire cases was legalised in 1938 after the famous trial of Dr Aleck Bourne, but that law didn’t offer a free pass to anyone who claimed vaguely that their mental health would be at risk if they carried the baby to term. It required serious evidence.
And as soon as it was replaced by a more liberal law, the present annual massacre began, and continues to grow. The same will happen to the old and unwanted. It will start with a few dozen annual trips to Zurich, urged on by ‘compassionate’ relatives and complaisant doctors. It will end with our hospitals switching on the morphine pump earlier and earlier.
(Back)
