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.36 responses total.
I do too. Then I hope they change the law to allow others the same control over the end of their lives.
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.
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Why are sickos always named Humbert.
re0 tldr. re 3 & 4 AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
I have stage IV lymphoma. Maybe there are different types of stages? Mine is quite treatable.
I did some searching on the web to try to find why suicide itself, assisted or not, is considered illegal in most countries. I didn't find any real legal reasons, and there are very few serious treatments of the question. One I found is http://collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/201/300/cdn_medical_association/cmaj/vol-1 59/ issue-3/0239.htm This article mostly addresses attitudes toward suicide, which seem to be the basis for the condemnation of suicide, but not for its illegality. The only direct statement for its illegality is "The act of self-killing was considered criminal because it was perceived as transgressing the moral authority of God and the righteous feelings of humankind". This is hardly a reason that should hold any weight in our secular legal system. It is my opinion that suicide itself should be decriminalized, as it is not a matter with which criminal law should be concerned. Assisted suicide, however, is different, as the motives of another besides the suicide can enter. The issue then is to make suicide the absolute choice of the suicides themselves, with "assistance" only in the form of carrying out the suicides wishes.
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.
A plausible reason for sanctions against suicide is that it gives government agents a statutory pretext for intervening.
Yes, it does do that, but the legal basis for the pretext seems lacking.
What was that story (on CNN.com) today about a city (in FL?) that has voted to criminalize a proposed "concert" during which someone was supposed to commit suicide on stage. Any of you sick-os planning to attend that?
I would think you'd be planning on going, since you approve of the death penalty, and only sicks minds do.
A couple of years ago, famed sixties guru Timothy Leary, who was dying of cancer, wanted to kill himself online. He wanted to wait until one of his last days, when his body was ravaged with cancer, and then get on a party chatroom and talk with young people and then take a drug cocktail and expire on-line. It was his life and this was how he wanted to die. He was even going to have a videocam hooked up to his computer, so people could go to his site and watch him die. But he got threats and officials said they'd shut his site down. So he didn't end up dying online like he wanted. But why shouldn't he have had that choice? Leary was going to die anyway, so if he wanted to die in a chatroom, with his image seen over the internet, wasn't that his choice
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Right goals, dead wrong way to achieve them... <bleah>
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.
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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.
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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.
I think this much more distasteful than inherent illegal, if the suicide is totally volunteer, without coercion of any kind. This just means that I think suicide is a private matter, and it is "suspicious" if done for public consumption, especially if not to make a "statement" (as has been done by some Buddhist monks, if I recall correctly).
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Voluntarily?
Ok. An alcoholic mouse.
That or a couple hoser brothers looking to get some free beer from Elsinore Brewery.
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this group also pureed a lave rat on stage. Wher was PETA!!!
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>#10 Suicide laws have legal basis depending on what kind of suicide you are talking about. An involuntarty self-killing is always wrong and invention is ethically right. The overreaching expansion of suicide laws to encompass voluntary self-killings is certainly more problematic,depending on how paternaltisic we want our society to be.
28: OUCH.
resp:29 - What do you mean by involuntary and voluntary self-killing?
invention *is* ethically right ... and quite american expression of individual liberty.
involuntary self-killings: accidental overdoses, attempt to die while mentally impaired. voluntary self-killings: decision to die is reasoned, calculated motivated and free of duress or misperception because of mental defect. Certainly, there is a bias to think that suicide in never a voluntary self-killing. Nevertheless, a distinction can be made for the purposes of discussion. From a perspective of public policy, reports of a suicide attempt need to be handled as involuntary self-killings for pausing to determine whether a person wanted to die or not could be tragically fatal.
It's not an either/or case. It's a continuum, with lots of murky ground in the middle, including a certain amount of uncertainty. Do you *really* have a fatal illness, or did the doctor's just make a mistake? Are you *really* paralyzed for life, or will you make a partial recovery next year? I think, on the whole, simply letting people decide this entirely on their own breeds more evil than attempting to provide some sort of public framework in which we can attempt to inject some measure of objectivity and perhaps better catch mistakes and malicious behavior.
Add to "involuntary self-killing" extreme sports (like skiing down Mt Everest). Some of those that engage in that fail, so they try again. Deep free diving (the record is now near 900 feet) has mosttly been successful involuntary self-killing.
I mean, I bet the AMs'd like getting rewhoreds from the whores.
You have several choices: