to think that a parent should not be given life for mercy killing..

[purplepeony]

as Frances Inglis has just been given?

This isn't sitting right for me tbh and I don't feel able to comment fairly.

I thought a "mercy killing" was with the consent of the "victim".

I don't think it was that simple though was it.

And I think the notion of a "mercy killing" is pretty awful actually. A life as a profoundly disabled person is not less of a life, I don't think it was her decision to decide that her son should die.

She had made a couple of attempts to kill him, it was a pre-meditated act.

As far as I am aware (going by media reports obviously) her son was not in pain, therefore what made her feel compelled to do this. Whose suffering was she really easing?

I watched BBC news earlier and they presented it as a mother "obsessed" with the idea that her son was suffering.

I know little of the facts surrounding this case but if that were a well founded observation then it would alter my view somewhat.

I'm not sure that one person's idea of 'mercy' is the same as another's, though I do support euthanasia in general.

I remain on the fence.

It's not black and white, this whole issue, is it? Not to me, anyway. But, from the facts as they have been presented in the media, I would have to say that the sentence is unnecessarily harsh. Poor woman.

Euthanasia, that was the word!

Is there any indication that he wanted her to help him end his life?

If not, how was it not murder?

Why should parents be exempt from prosecution in these circumstances? How is a parent suddenly imbued with omnipotent powers to decide if their child should live or die simply because they are a parent?

You're right diddl. Under British law it could only be murder. I always find the reporting of these cases frustrating - have we any idea how aware he was of what was going on? Was he able to communicate at all? I think the verdict is probably right, but not sure what purpose 9 years inside will serve.

but we make decisions constantly in the best interests for our children who cannot choose for themselves.

I'm not saying it was right. I don't know enough details. But i can't say it was wrong either.

When it's with the consent of both parties I think it should be completely legal. This is a bit trickier.

Still even if they/we disagreed with her decision surely this is less evil a crime than say a murder for profit and should be treated more leniently.

Well, 9yrs-less time already served for murder sounds light to me

But him dying was not her decision to make.

If he was not able to express a wish to die (and it seems that he wasn't due to his brain injury) then no-one had the right to decide that he should be killed.

It is entirely possible that he wouldn't want to live like that, but equally it is entirely possible that he wouldn't have wanted to die either. While he was not able to communicate his wish it was not up to his mother to decide what he would have wanted.

Allowing someone to get away with killing someone like that (and it's worth bearing in mind that this woman went to incredible lengths to kill him), would be a very slipper slope imo.

We simply can't send out the message that it's ok to kill someone when you feel their life is not worth living.

She decided to kill her son. It is murder, plain and simple.

I disagree. This woman may well have thought she was acting in her son's best interests but she's not God. What gives someone the right to decide that someone else's life is not worth living.

I think the judge was right to sentence "harshly". Had she been seen to "get off", how many other murders would be committed with the excuse: oh well, I though [the victim's] life was not worth living/I was doing them a favour.

Poor woman, but as others have said she did not have the right to make that decision.

This is the other side to the thread earlier today about a mother who is facing trial after assisting her daughter's suicide - but in that case the daughter clearly wanted to die and apparently the mother had first tried to dissuade her.

When I first heard of this case I was utterly horrified. The actions of Ms Inglis were completely pre-meditated.

I can say this from having a DD who was very ill and during an operation ended up severely brain damaged. I never ever ever would have wanted her to die.

I can understand that the burden of caring for someone day in day out for life may take its toll but Ms Inglis never once cared for her son after he became brain damaged he lived in hospital and a residential home.

My only wish for DD was for her to not be in any pain, which meant every available type of rehabilitative therapy and trying to get her as pain-relieved as possible. Not once did I want her to die, and as a parent who has experienced a similar event to Ms Inglis I can definitely say that the sentence she has got is imo fair. A disabled life is worth no less than any other life, even severely brain damaged children/people can still experience pleasure and happiness and nobody should have the right to choose who lives and who dies.

Doctors turn off life support when it's for the best and don't resuscitate when that's for the best. I'm not even saying she was right, but such decisions are made all the time.

Poor man being killed nevermind poor bloody woman! Why did she feel she had to right to take his life? I think it's awful that she did that regardless of the reasons. She murdered him, simple as that and she deserved the sentance given under the law.

I just hope she realised how wrong she was and that she did not ever have the right to do that.

Euthanasia and right to die debates are not relevant here, they all revolve around the choice to die. Her son did not choose to die or express any desire to die. She went to great, great lengths to kill him.

Oh and mercy killing my arse.

From my understanding, 9yrs is about the minimum for murder?

It isn't the same thing at all onagar and I think this woman has behaved appallingly.

there's a vast difference though between ceasing treatment thus enabling someone to die and actively killing someone.

Would people think it ok for doctors to administer drug overdoses in order to kill those patients whose lives they did not think were worth living?

IMO people are blinkered by the fact that this was the mother, and therefore feel she must have done it out of love. If a doctor had done the same there would be outcry.

onagar I agree, but if he was very severely brain damaged then it is likely to be honest that at some stage he would have ended up phsyically very unwell, even if from something like a failed swallow reflex and pneumonia, and then perhaps on life support and then perhaps the medical team could have made that decision and withdrawn life sustaining treatment or chosen not to resuscitate if he arrested for example. It was neither the time nor her place to do it.

this story?

I disagree. you don't have the right to decide when someone else should die.

I don't think the doctors do, when they withdraw fluids etc from a coma patient and I don't think she did.

You can't just decide that someone else's life is not worth living. You just can't. If you ever make that ok, even once, then where does it end?

What she did was not for him, it was for her. imo, she couldn't stand seeing him like that, so for her own feelings, she killed him, because it was too painful for her.

If he had expressed a wish to die, that would be a different argument - does a person have the right to end their own life.

But he didn't express that wish. He was in the nursing home and she went to great lengths to get to him to do that to him. Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.

Just read it on the BBC. It is terrible for everyone involved IMO.