Assisted Suicide-- right or wrong?

Sep 28 08:03 UTC 2003

From yesterday's New York Times:


"Son's Wish to Die, and Mother's Help, Stir French Debate
By CRAIG S. SMITH

Published: September 27, 2003


ARIS, Sept. 26   "I Ask the Right to Die," written by Vincent Humbert, 
a 22-year-old French paraplegic, hit bookstores here on Thursday. Today 
he died, two days after his mother put an overdose of sedatives into 
his intravenous line.

She acted on the third anniversary of the car accident that left him 
paralyzed, mute and blind. 

His death and his book calling for the legalization of euthanasia have 
transfixed the nation and drawn the debate over assisted suicide out of 
hospital wards and into people's homes.

Assisted suicide is outlawed in France but is permitted under certain 
circumstances in the Netherlands and Belgium. It is fully legal in 
Switzerland, where there are associations that help terminally ill 
patients kill themselves.

Radio call-in programs, television talk shows and the opinion pages of 
the country's newspapers have swelled with discussion of Mr. Humbert's 
death and what punishment, if any, his mother, Marie Humbert, should 
receive.

Ms. Humbert, 48, who had campaigned for the right to end her son's 
life, was taken into custody by the police on suspicion of attempted 
murder late Wednesday but was released on Thursday and allowed to see 
her son before he died. She was subsequently hospitalized at an 
undisclosed location. Her current whereabouts is unknown.

Lib ration, the country's largest left-wing daily, praised Ms. Humbert 
in an editorial headlined, "Let us end this hypocrisy." An editorial in 
Le Monde, France's leading newspaper, called only for a national debate 
but pointed out that the country's national ethics consulting committee 
recommended in January 2000 that a law be passed legalizing euthanasia 
in exceptional cases.

So far, the country's judicial system is dealing gently with Ms. 
Humbert, who won enormous public sympathy in her campaign for 
euthanasia.

Justice Minister Dominique Perben asked prosecutors in a statement 
today "to act with the greatest humanity in applying the law, taking 
into account the suffering of the mother and the young man." The lead 
prosecutor in the case told reporters that an official inquiry into Mr. 
Humbert's death would be undertaken "in due time."

Mr. Humbert's plight captured national attention last December after he 
wrote a direct appeal to France's president, Jacques Chirac, asking for 
the legal right to end his own life. Mr. Chirac wrote back that he 
could not grant the request "because the president of the republic 
doesn't have that right, but I understand your helplessness and deep 
despair in facing the living conditions that you endure."

Mr. Humbert then set about writing his book from his bed at the same 
hospital in the northern port of Berck-sur-Mer where Jean-Dominique 
Bauby, all but incapacitated by a stroke, wrote his haunting 
memoir, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." Mr. Bauby died in 1997, 
two days after his book was published.

Mr. Humbert wrote his book with the help of a journalist, Fr d ric 
Veille, by pressing with his thumb and nodding his head to spell out 
words as Mr. Veille read repeatedly through the alphabet.

In "I Ask the Right to Die," Mr. Humbert recounts with heartbreaking 
bitterness how his life as a healthy, careful young fireman ended when 
his car met an oncoming truck on a narrow country road. After enduring 
months of ebbing hope that he would recover any of his lost faculties   
he even lost his senses of taste and smell   he decided he wanted to 
die and with his mother began the campaign.

Mr. Humbert had argued to be allowed to end his life legally in France 
because he was unable to afford the cost of transport abroad, even if 
it could have been arranged.

"Then, so that you understand me better, so that the debate about 
euthanasia finally reaches another level, so that this word and this 
act are no longer a taboo subject, so that we no longer let live lucid 
people like me who want to put an end to their own suffering, I wanted 
to write this book that I will never read," he wrote.

In the book, which was the second-best-selling title on France's 
Amazon.com Web site this morning, Mr. Humbert described asking his 
mother to kill him and her decision to do so. As the third anniversary 
of his Sept. 24 accident approached, his mother signaled her intention 
to kill her son in media interviews.

Ms. Humbert injected sedatives into her son's intravenous drip late 
Wednesday, sending him into a coma. The family then pleaded with 
doctors to let him die. Mr. Humbert died today after doctors abandoned 
efforts to keep him alive, saying in a statement that they had made 
their "collective and difficult decision in complete independence."

Mr. Humbert's book ends with a plea to readers to empathize with his 
mother and leave her in peace. "What she has done for me is surely the 
most beautiful proof of love in the world," he wrote."


So where do you stand on this issue?  Do you think this woman deserves 
to go to jail for helping her son to die? Is assisted suicide ethical?  
Assisted suicide is a thorny issue, but I think in general if someone 
really, deeply and honestly wants to die, that it is their life and 
their decision to make.  Personally, I think prosecuting this woman 
serves no purpose, this was her son and he wanted to die and jail isn't 
going to cause her to suffer any more than she already has.  I hope 
they let her go.
 

response 2 of 36:

Sep 28 13:51 UTC 2003

If you look for Hemlock Society on the web, you will find a group in the US
that is working for the same change in US law.

In Michigan, suicide is illegal, and the home hospice staff told me and my
friend's children that they were required to report to the police any
conversations they heard about helping him end his life. 

He had been a supporter of Ed Peirce and the movement in Michigan to add a
constitutional amendment allowing such choices.  So, shortly after his
esophagus was removed because of cancer, he asked me to find out what
alternatives he had.  That's when I found the Hemlock Society.  

He was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer in February, was told he had on the
average, 12 months to live, and died from cancer 4 months later.  

response 4 of 36:

Sep 28 14:21 UTC 2003

Why are sickos always named Humbert.

response 6 of 36:

Sep 28 17:26 UTC 2003

I have stage IV lymphoma.  Maybe there are different types of stages?
Mine is quite treatable.

response 8 of 36:

Sep 29 01:39 UTC 2003

I can think of any number of ways that suicide could be encouraged for 
the terminally ill.  "You're costing us money and it can never do any 
good, and we can't afford it."  "The kids are scared of you."  "You're 
worthless."  If suicide and assisted suicide were legal, I would hope 
that driving someone toward it could be discouraged.

Also, non-terminally ill people could be lied to for the gain of 
others.  (Terminally ill people, of course, could also be lied to; for 
example, a doctor who likes the income telling someone they've got a 
better chance of survival than they really do.)  Those things should 
be discouraged, but I don't see how to prove that they've happened.

It might be a good thing to have restrictions on why and how someone 
could kill himself, or assist in the suicide of another.  Mentally ill 
people should probably be treated, not killed off.  I'd prefer not to 
have people pushed off buildings towering above busy sidewalks.

I am in favor of allowing terminally ill people to end their lives, 
too, as long as it's their free and fully informed choice.  I think 
properly ensuring that it is their choice is highly tricky.  I don't 
know how to be completely sure of that, and so I hope the lawmakers 
and judges proceed very slowly and carefully when it comes to 
legalizing suicide or the assisting of suicide.

response 10 of 36:

Sep 29 18:23 UTC 2003

Yes, it does do that, but the legal basis for the pretext seems lacking.

response 12 of 36:

Sep 30 03:13 UTC 2003

I would think you'd be planning on going, since you approve of the death
penalty, and only sicks minds do. 

response 16 of 36:

Sep 30 14:27 UTC 2003

I think I'd be in favor of assisted suicide in some situations, but I
think the examples in #0 and #14 are the wrong way to go about it.

response 18 of 36:

Sep 30 16:35 UTC 2003

Hey, if people don't like this band's approach they won't buy their products,
which will result in them going out of business.  When I put on my "free
market" goggles it all makes perfect sense.

Of course those free-market Republicans can't help but meddle in things, so
they'll try to shut this down.

response 20 of 36:

Sep 30 18:50 UTC 2003

GG Allin claimed on several occasions that he was going to off himself
onstage, usually at a halloween show.  Instead he OD'ed on horse after a show
with no one to watch.

response 24 of 36:

Sep 30 22:33 UTC 2003

Ok.  An alcoholic mouse.