Interesting and revolting story over at Pajamas Media:
…Earlier this month, British conductor Sir Edward Downes, 85, traveled to Dignitas — the Zurich-based suicide clinic — with his wife Joan, 74, who had terminal cancer. Sir Edward was frail, with failing eyesight and hearing, but not terminally ill. After fifty-four years of marriage, the couple drank a fatal draft of poison and “fell asleep” for the last time, holding hands across the bed. Their son described his parents’ last moments as “very calm and civilized.” Who could object to that? Surely, in a civilized society, everyone has the right to a calm death. Dignitas has found a gap in the market, and countries like the UK, where assisted suicide is illegal, should get with the program.
The founder of Dignitas, human rights lawyer Ludwig Minelli, sees nothing wrong with making his product available to as many people as possible. His motives are noble: death is a “human right without conditions” and a “marvelous possibility.” Besides, if people stick around needlessly, they cost the taxpayer money. Jenny McCartney writes in the Telegraph:
[He] offered an economic argument for the efficiency of his clinic. “For every 50 suicide attempts we have one suicide and the others are failing, with huge costs to the National Health Service.”
Forty-nine people still alive because they didn’t use a professional? That is failure indeed. Mr. Minelli has missed a marketing trick here. Just think of all the money that is wasted at The Samaritans, training staff to talk people out of suicide. They could be replaced by a recorded message saying: “Suicidal? Don’t botch it. Phone Dignitas — stone dead or your money back. Two for one offer — spouse goes free.” And unlike most products, there will be no need for an after-sales service…
…In seeing death as a right, Minelli is not alone. Blogging as Bradlaugh, John Derbyshire writes:
I have never been very clear about the religious objections to suicide and assisted suicide. The only time I tackled a religious colleague about it he launched into a “slippery slope” argument. Well, I suppose some slopes are slippery, and some aren’t. I can’t see this one as being particularly slippery.
I disagree. There has been some slippage already. From helping a terminally ill person kill himself before he becomes incapacitated, Dignitas has slithered down to dispatching the frail and sad.
Derbyshire either unfortunately ran in to a believer who hadn’t thought the matter through, or he dismissed the argument out of hand and characterizes it as “slippery slope”, as that seems to be a weak argument. Its not, of course – it is the argument; once admit the exception, and the exception becomes the rule.
Divorce is so common nowadays that it isn’t really remarked upon as a thing in itself – we talk about how divorce can have an ill effect on children and other effects of divorce, but the fact of divorce is taken as a given. Its no big deal in society if someone gets a divorce. Used to not be that way – in fact, a divorce was a gigantic scandal and, at times, led to utter social destruction for both parties to the divorce. People would go to all sorts of lengths to avoid divorce – including mutual winking at each others affairs…divorce was so rare and scandalous that adultery was considered a lower risk! What happened? We admitted the exception, and it became the rule.
Back when the concept of liberalizing divorce laws came up, the assertion was that it was only needed for the exceptions to the rule against divorce. Certainly, marriage was for life and no valid marriage should be broken up – but what about those cases where something really horrible is happening? A man beating his wife routinely and/or engaging in extra-marital affairs was used as the prop for the straw man – who would be so heartless as to condemn a poor woman to such a marriage just to adhere to a musty, old rule which only Christian cranks took seriously? From what I understand, a least a version of the “slippery slope” argument was marshaled against liberal divorce laws. Such arguments were calmly ignored because everyone knows who weak the “slippery slope” argument is.
Fast forward, and here we are today with nearly half of all marriages ending in divorce and in some communities marriage has been so degraded as a concept that vast majorities of couples never bother with a wedding before entering in to a household and producing children. And this only begins to note the social pathologies subsequent to liberal divorce laws. Divorce has been a sociological catastrophe – and taught us (a) don’t tinker with the sanctity of marriage and (b) don’t take that first step on a slippery slope.
Assisted suicide is not the first step on the slippery slope. Its the fourth or fifth step. The first step was the legalization of birth control. You see, either life is worthwhile, or its not. Once you admit the exception to this (“who would be heartless enough to force a couple to have a child when they aren’t ‘ready’?” – its ok to cut off this aspect of human life, because its just this one, little thing and we’re just being reasonable), the rest follows like a train running down hill. We now practically admit that life is only good if its perfect – when a person has sufficient wealth and health to do as they please whenever they please to do it. Once this level of perfection is gone, life is not worthwhile – or, at least, not as worthwhile as it used to be and so birth control, abortion, euthanasia, infanticide.
If life is not inherently valuable, then it is contingent upon our pleasing those around us. The final stop on this road to perdition is a society where people are not allowed to live if they don’t fit a certain set of parameters determined by others for what constitutes a worthwhile life. You can want to live in such a society, I don’t want to. Life is far to wonderful an adventure for me to want to give it up because some pseudo-intellectual pinhead decides I’m not living as well as he thinks I should prefer. It is the ultimate act of a coward to kill one’s self – someone who is afraid to live life, all of life, is someone who kills themselves. I will take what God gives me – if it is pain and suffering, I’ll endure because this, too, shall pass. I’d rather not have the pain and suffering, of course, but it is not for me to rule all events.
Life or death – the choice has always lain before us since the Fall. Death, of course, stalks the land – all of us will die, in the by and by. But we can rule our fate in this much – we can, if we wish, take despair as our guide and take our own lives in consequence. But even as we exercise that sovereign choice to die, we are actually abdicating that authority and turning in to slaves of the flesh – people doubly doomed. Choose life is not just a slogan: it is the fountainhead of wisdom.
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