23 year old has assisted suicide in Switzerland

[Evenstar]

Here news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/7676812.stm

This is terribly sad, I wonder how much help and support this family were given in the wake of their son's accident.

I don't know the ins and outs of the euthanasia debate in Holland so I'm only going on that article.

I feel very strongly that I should have a right to end my life if I choose and if I don't have the physical capacity to do that myself, I'd like to be able to find someone to help me. I have an agreement with my parents that we will help one another.

NMC - eugenics has definitely been around for a long time. But a doctor giving you a bit of horribly uncalled for 'advice' doesn't constitute a call for it (and for a condition which doesn't sound like downs). I was talking about an MP putting it forward for parliamentary debate.

I think the baying at the parents on this thread is really horrible and brutal, actually. I doubt you even believe it, but it's convenient to demonise then for the purposes of your argument. I have no doubt that NMC has many fears for her daughter, and as the parent of a much less disabled child, I think I can understand. I have fears for my son's future too and fear can make you angry in my experience. However, I do not think this man should have been forced to starve himself to death for the sake of a disability movement that he had no desire to join. He felt his life was intolerable. He had tried and failed to kill himself many times. He was an adult. You may argue it was too soon, but suppose he still felt like this after two, three, ten years, should he still be forced to live just because he was unfortunate enough to have a disability radical enough to prevent him killing himself? I'm sorry but really think it is a ridiculous comparison to say it is the same as feeling depressed after breaking up with a girlfriend. He had a catastrophic injury that robbed him of everything that gave him pleasure - sport, sex, going to the pub and lifting his own pint - and left him totally dependent and even unable to shit by himself. I am not at all sure that I would want to live like that either, and I have kids and a husband. I am claustrophobic, and found not being able to move the lower half of my body when I had a caesarean made me profoundly panicky. I cannot imagine how I would feel to be unable to move any of my body - I would have to be heavily sedated to cope. This is NOT saying anything like disabled people do not deserve to life, or that they should be killed. As I said, if someone lost their kids I would understand their desire not to live. It doesn't mean that I think the lives of bereaved parents are worthless. That is a big, illogical jump.

Reallytired you are right about brain damage in small babies. a lot of those babies go on to live good lives.
also I think the idea of doctors allowing brain damaged babies to die is imoral and also could lead to prosucution. a lot of babies are brain damaged at birth due to negligence, so it would be like a cover up iynwim.
mabanana I think most people sympathise with the parents. just disagree with them doing it. are we not allowed to voice an opinion? they made a very big decision which has become public. it is on the news and in the papers. so people imo have a right to talk about it.

I think that is the saddest thing about the case, that it has had all this public airing. This family have just been bereaved. They did not ask for publicity and I cannot see how it can possibly help anyone. I do wonder if one of the triggers was the move that the clinic is going to make to restrict access to Swiss nationals (cited here) I can imagine that if you felt the possibility was going to be taken away you might feel you had no choice but to go ahead as soon as possible.

There has been an implication that they didn't love him and 'all they saw was the wheelchair', which I really think is just appalling. Imagine if they read that, and to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they did. I found the Times story very moving. Poor little Sanne. I think it would have been kinder to let her go earlier, not because she was worthless, but on the contrary, because she was a little baby whose body left her in torment.

Have been thinking about this all day. My intial post (suggesting that despite supporting the principle of euthanasia had it been my son I would have wanted him to wait 3 years and to see if we could find him reasons to live) was with reflection, pretty flippant. It was also by implication critical of his parents, which is hugely crass. They of course knew and loved him best and they did an unimaginably difficult thing and supported him. When I posted I was thinking how would I feel if it happened to my child, which of course is not relevant, the only important thing here was how the experience was for him. It was a second class existance for him, not a reflection on anyone else.

I also take NMC's point that she has made a very positive life for her and her daughter out of, at first sight, not very positive cirumstances, but he couldnt and didnt and I dont think his decision reflects in anyway of those who chose to carry on.

I cant help feeling that key in this is pain. I think as soon as there is chronic unmanagable pain then it is difficult to sustain an argument for forcing someone to endure. The article describing the babies in severe terminal pain was hugely upsetting. It is often pointed out we would not do this to animals.

Surely open above board and checkable euthansia is better than what we have now which would seem to be a lottery based on which doctors you are in contact with. Fear of a system being abused is a reason for having extremely rigorous checks on that system rather than not having it at all.

This whole thing is a tragedy. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to what happened. I have not read the whole thread but my thoughts are with his family and I hope the press leave them alone at his sad time.

I agree with Dragon all the way.

Some excellent points made here.

I think society has NO right forcing sensient adults (and it's already been established that it is possible to approach suicide from a sane standpoint) to live if they don't want to - and let's face it, if he'd tried to starve himself (his only option besides assisted suicide to end his own life aside from Switzerland) the case to force feed him may have gone to court.

No right. EVER. A person's right to live, and right to die, is, to me, a fundamental one.

We don't know this man. We don't know how he would have felt next year or ten years from now and it's a moot point because it was his life, his choice, his right.

The shocking aspect of this story was that it wasn't a terminally ill situation.

This man was disabled due to a tragic accident, rather than at birth, which is significant only in that his change of circumstance was such a huge life changing event, and was distressing enough for him to want to die.

The right to life/right to death has its place for debate, but I would hope that this tragic situation is seen as a one off.

No one knows his personal circumstances, but he probably wasn't suicidal prior to the accident.

I agree, proper safeguards and protocols are surely better than parents fighting in courts or doctors under prosecution? Of course then it hugely matters that the process is right, and the life of the child safeguarded from casual action. I do think this is going to be a growing area as babies born very early, which would previously have been allowed to die get more and more intense treatment, with variable outcomes.

why should ANYONE live if they don't want to?One persons full and valid life is anothers torture.

I don't remotely blame the parents.
I just think that 12-18 months after a life changing accident there should be help to adjust to your new life rather than help committing suicide.

Likewise 12-18 months after a divorce of bereavement or any other difficult circumstance there should be help to adjust rather than help to die.

I don't think the parents should be prosecuted but I think its a shame that there was support to die rather than support to live so soon after an accident.

but he didn't want to live.There does seem to be support for those who do Much more difficult to access services to assist suicide which is why going abroad is the only choice for some.

I can totally see the point re giving him time but we don't know what his daily life was like. If he felt constantly trapped in his body and was having daily panic attacks, chronic claustrophobia, as well as constant agony and convulsions, in addition to the total dependence on others and the loss of all his previous pleasures, well, I wouldn't want to live like that either. If he was pissed off in the extreme it would be different, but I do think his parents knew him better than any of us.

I agree re time but who decides what is enough Trapped in a situation that is distressing could feel like an eternity after a few weeks never mind months

I think it is totally inhumane that people have to travel across Europe in order to have assistance to end their lives in a dignified manner. When people have reached this decision haven't they and their families already suffered enough? It saddens me that when this choice is made the person cannot be assisted in their own home in the U.K.

well said herbietea!I have had 2 transplants and in the interim when the first organ had failed I felt my life was second best and torture tbh.I knwe that there was a chance of a transplant and that kept me going but if the life i was living had been my only choice with no glimmer of something better I would have definitely been considering putting an end to it.Constant pain and distress over whelms you at times and it is not for others to decide what us and isn't a tolerable and valid life

jimjamshaslefttheyurt I agree with your post.

Surely the issue here is twofold.

Firstly, people must surely believe that people either have the right to end their lives as and when they see fit, or they don?t. Because surely to one, the break-up of a relationship is as devastating as becoming disabled is to another. So it cannot be right to trivialize one over the other, as ultimately it all comes down to personal feeling. One person might not get over losing a girlfriend in the same way as someone else might not get over becoming disabled, so should the person who breaks up with his girlfriend be entitled to take a trip to Switzerland to kill himself? And should we have equal sympathy with him as with the man who has lost the use of his arms and legs? Emotional pain can be as devastating as physical pain.

The second issue is whether people should be allowed to assist those who are less able, to end their lives in what is perceived to be a dignified manner. Assisted suicide is illegal in this country, so surely we either need to stick to that, and prosecute those that assist suicide, or we need to make the practice legal and open up the possibilities for such a clinic to be built here n the UK. And to what extent do you turn a blind eye? If a mother/sibling/partner assists someone to commit suicide by accompanying them to Switzerland, we feel sympathy for them because losing that loved one must be hard for them. But what if it wasn?t a family member? What if it was someone with the desire to help others, a stranger, who feels that dying in an ?undignified? manner is wrong and they would like to help. Should we allow that? Or should they be prosecuted because they are not emotionally connected to the deceased?

I really very much doubt that for 99% of people that the breakup of a relationship is as depressing as losing control of just about every bit of your body. I think it's a very weak comparison. And the whole point here is that if he was that depressed about a breakup he could have killed himself by himself without any need for a trip to Switzerland. The question of help would not have arisen so it's irrelevant. It was only his extreme disability that made the help necessary.
If what they did isn't illegal in Switzerland then no, they shouldn't be prosecuted here. It's illegal for women to drive a car unaccompanied in Saudi Arabia. If I visited that country, should I be prosecuted for driving in the UK?

who honestly believes that if assisted suicide or doctor assisted suicide was made legal in this country it wouldn't end up being abused?

NMC well people who know nothing of disability of course

so herbietea, your argument isn't that this man shouldn't have been allowed to commit suicide, it is that because he cannot do it himself, someone should help him do it.

So in that case, if a man in a wheelchair, who has been in a wheelchair all his life and who is happy with his life the way it is breaks up with his girlfriend and this devostates him to the point of wanting to kill himself, should assisted suicide be available to him? After all, the man who is not in a wheelchair could commit suicide as and when he wants (and people do kill themselves over relationship break-ups), so surely someone should help the man in the wheelchair to do what his non disabled counterpart is capable of? And if not, why not?