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 think the reason an emotional break up is not a valid comparison is that for the vast majority, emotional distress eases over time, so it may take a while but most people will feel better and may make a complete recovery. Clearly chronic pain is a completely different ball game, it is not eased by time, or compassion or a nice break with friends etc etc.

NMC- I am intersted in your opinion - are you against assisted suicide itself or are you against it because you feel that it would be impossible to safeguard properly? If for instance you were in charge of making the rules regarding who could be considered and what the monitoring of cirumstances would be, would you be in favour? Do you feel that even with stringent safeguards people who needed caring for would feel pressured? What about restriction to terminal cases? Are ther cirucmstances where you could support it?

I'm not comparing the shock of losing the use of your body with a relationship breakdown, perhaps a sudden close bereavement is a better comparison in terms of shock. My point is that in those sorts of cases if you had a friend who was suicidal you would say 'give it time and things might get easier' whereas the attitude of society in these sorts of cases seems to be 'yep you're right your life must be terrible if you're severely disabled and has no chance of ever getting better because you've no chance of suddenly getting better. Let's help you end it.' My point is that given time to adjust people do find their life gets better, they rebuild their life around their disability, just as people rebuild lives after bereavement etc.

If you would help someone to end their life following a bereavement or relationship breakdown then fine I don't really have a problem. If you wouldn't but would in this case then I think you haven't understood that life can be very good even with severe disability. Most people don't understand that. Disabled people are in general to be pitied or admired not seen as someone 'normal'.

But you don't get over any huge shock in a year. Someone may never get over the loss of a loved one and may commit suicide, likewise someone may never get over a disability. But I think that a year after any shock people should be encouraged to look forwards, not helped to end it all.

Ten years after maybe a different scenario.

No-one on this thread (and I have read the lot) has said or even as far as I could tell has intimated that the lives of those who are disabled have any less value than anyone else's.

Dan James obviously felt that his life was not what it had been and it would stay that way for ever. For him it was 'second class'; but having read the interview and the posts made by his mum, nowhere does she say that disabled people are any such thing; but her son perceived his life to be that way.

We all have choices in life - his was to die. By doing so he was not saying that a disabled life is intolerable in general, but that his life in particular had lost value, meaning and purpose for him.

I also thought that the comments on here about his parents mourning their old son, and not coming to terms with their 'new' one were insensitive in the extreme. He was still their son; still the same person; still Dan; just with a different set of needs.

As Julie James poignantly put it: ?Our son could not have been more loved and had he felt he could live his life this way he would have been loved just the same, but this was his right as a human being. Nobody, but nobody, should judge him or anyone else.?

If this happened to me, and I wanted to die because I hated every second of my panic-ridden, helpless, very physically painful life, I would really hope someone would help me, as Dan's parents helped him. It was not even as if the choice for them was either cheerfully helping him look forward (which I'm sure they tried) or going to Switzerland. He was apparently perfectly prepared to slowly starve himself to death, so it was a choice between a slow, appalling death, or a quick, painless one. Should they have just said, 'ok, go on then' when this profoundly suicidal man refused food, or should they have insisted on his being force-fed via a tube? Yes, 18months is a short time, but he sounds a man of huge determination who would have carried through his threat. Of course people do have amazing lives even with profound disabilities. We all know about Stephen Hawking, for example. But I would guess Dan was a very different type of person.

Totally agree with Scaryteacher, I have sot seen a post on this thread that has suggested that all disabled people's lives are less worthwhile and therefore should be allowed to die/killed.

I know I dais I'd gone away but one thing I've been wondering about is how long Switzerland has had the legal assisted suicide laws and how it has progressed. From what I read, it seems well set up to prevent misuse as, for example, each case has to be videoed to ensure freewill on the part of the "patient".

Apparently his parents are being interviewed by the CPS. I'd be interested to know what law they have broken in this country.

Ah, apparently the 1961 Suicide Act makes it illegal to "aid, abet, counsel or procure the suicide of another" I suppose they could argue that the aiding and counselling etc happened here, even if the actual suicide happened abroad.

I heard that pushing a wheelchair cannot be considered 'aiding' a suicide.

So you would all support this decision for someone recently bereaved (a year ago) or recently divorced (a year ago) if their life had no purpose or meaning for them? You'd help them?

I understand that he felt his life had no meaning, and I understand he was suicidal because of it. Just like I understand why an able bodied friend twice tried to kill himself. A few of us were in close contact with this person at the time and we all said 'give it time and things may get better'. I think most would? This young man should have been told the same things. Maybe I'm wrong maybe others would encourage the able bodied who have been through terrible shocks recently to kill themselves if they decide their life is not longer worth living.

I am saying no-one comes to terms with a severe disability that quickly. No-one. Its just not possible. Which is why we shouldn't be so quick to agree that life can't be worth living, just because we can't get our heads round the fact that even severely disabled people can have a quality of life that is every bit as good as ours.

Although most people do think that severely disabled people can only have a fully worthwhile and full life if they're fixed I can tell you that is not true. But you have to stop judging the life from the position of normality. Who knows whether this person could have? He didn't get the time to find out.

I hope that these laws are never passed in this country (I used to think they should be) as I would fear for the life of my child after we're gone tbh.

JJ, they wouldn't need help though would they? Bereavement doe not incapacitate you to the point you can not take your own life. Unless they were already disabled of course.

Obviously first I would suggest counselling. We don't know how much counselling was given in this case. He probably was told things would improve. We don't know. As I've said several times, I bet his parents didn't just say "OK then, let's go off to Switzerland so you can kill yourself." He was, apparently, in constant physical pain and tetraplegic. By his standards, his life was intolerable.

I really don't understand why you fear for the life of your child. Assisted voluntary suicide under the circumstances which appear to be set out in Switzerland is a world away from involuntary euthanasia.

"So you would all support this decision for someone recently bereaved"

Yes, I would support their right to make their own choice. the same way I would support someone's choice to have an abortion.

Jimjams, while I respect your point of view, and I can see that assisted suicide poses ethical problems, do you seriously think the parents and doctors never tried to encourage him? Really? That's not what they say. Are they lying? I think this parent-bashing is the worst thing about this thread. They said they wanted him to live, but could see how much he wanted to die. And as I said, the choice was not, help him or encourage him to life, it was between following his wishes and helping him, or watching him deliberately starve himself to death. Do you honestly think that would have been a better thing to have happened? As I said he sounded a hugely determined person to have made previous suicide attempts despite his helpless condition. I think the comparisons of his total helplessness and constant physical agony with a breakup iwth a girlfriend really belittles his obvious suffering.
The only reason I think I would want to live if I had the same injury as he has is for my children. Without kids, I think my life would be too appalling to contemplate. I might change my mind if it happened, but I might not.

If someone had lost all their kids, I would understand their decision to kill themselves. No, I wouldn't help them, because they wouldn't need my help, and yes, I would try to dissuade them, but that's not really the point here. He was only helped because the alternative was slow starvation, and his parents saw his daily, non-stop torment and knew he was powerless to end it.

Very well said Mabanana - in both posts

"So you would all support this decision for someone recently bereaved" (I know you were just quoting this Dragon)

Trying to conflate the discussion - and all terms within it - into hypothetical nonsense is just idiotic, and I have no rspect for the views of the people who are doing it. They are just not 'listening' properly. Bad empathy. Obvious really. Yeah, lets kick the parents while they are down. It's just dispicable and I for one have no wish to engage with such shallow narcesism, which I why I haven't bothered posting except in support of Mabanana.

I'm never ever going to justify such idiotic views with any type of engagement on MN, even though this non engagemet will be taken as as some sort of acquiescence - it isn't, but so it goes..

"I also thought that the comments on here about his parents mourning their old son, and not coming to terms with their 'new' one were insensitive in the extreme. He was still their son; still the same person; still Dan; just with a different set of needs."

scarey teacher. I wrote that as it is what happens.
you morn the child that you nave lost. and have to get to know the child you now have(he might have been a man but he was their child)
he would not have been the same person. the accident would have changed him.
you can disagree with me but don't call me insensitive. it is something that I have expierence myself so do know what I am talking about.

and why are we "bashing" his poor parents. just because we have an opinion?

"JJ, they wouldn't need help though would they? Bereavement doe not incapacitate you to the point you can not take your own life. Unless they were already
disabled of course." so I ask again, if they were disabled and suffered a bereavement, do you think it would be appropriate for them to receive help to commit suicide? And if not, why not?

If everyone should have the right to make that decision about ending their own life, and some do not have the ability to carry out that decision independently, does it not then follow that someone with a severe disability which limits their independence should be entitled to assisted suicide under any circumstances?

and I don't think anyone has been bashing the parents. I think what they did is wrong, I think they themselves probably hadn't had enough time to come to terms with Daniel's accident and so they were most likely not in a good place to make this decision rationally.

And that's not to say I think they wanted him dead, but when your child is hurting then as a parent you will do anything to make it better, and if you are trying to do that while still coming too terms with what has happened to him then I don't imagine that you are in a position to think straight.

I have no doubt that Daniel received counselling but do you honestly think the parents did? I would be surprised tbh, because I don't imagine this was something they discussed with any professionals for fear of prosicution.

wannabe you make a good point.
my dd was disabled at birth. I didn't realise till years later that the odd feelings I was having at the time were due to me greiving.
it was only when I read a brilliant local parents book, that I realised what had happened.
I doubt very much if anyone told these parents about it.

I would be suprised. 4 years after dd's brain damage and much begging we still haven't had any counselling to come to terms with what happenend to our daughter.

I'm not parent bashing. I've said they were probably as shocked as him. I said it took me 6 years to comprehend that my son's life as someone severely disabled is as good as mine. That's why I spent until he was 8 measuring him against normal and trying to plot schemes to get him there. You don't get to the stage of understanding that being severely disabled doesn't stop you accessing life in one year.

Who am I bashing? A clinic that would allow it I guess and a society that would try and talk someone upset for a bereavement out of it but would encourage someone with a disability.

The only point I've seen that made any sense was nooka's earlier about him not being able to do it himself. But (wish I could find this article) I read something recently written by someone who had been in this man's position and hadn't been able to commit suicide (either the clinic refused him or he couldn't get there) and a few years down the line he had rebuilt his life in a way he hadn't been able to think possible and was opposed to euthanasia for spinal injuries. If you're not making the leap from the bridge, if someone else is physically doing it for you of course you need more safeguards.

"I'm never ever going to justify such idiotic views with any type of engagement on MN, even though this non engagemet will be taken as as some sort of acquiescence - it isn't, but so it goes.."

Moneytrousers my 'idiotic views' are from the experience of living with severe disability, of the experience of the grieving process, of the experience of knowing that you have a child who will never get better, who will never be 'fixed'. And a child who wasn't born that way. I've done the shock and grief, I have experienced how emotions change and also the length of time it takes. I've also talked to someone very shortly after a suicide attempt, and seen them carefully rebuild their lives. I'm raising money for people with spinal injuries. I take great offence at my carefully thought out views borne from experience being regarded as idiotic. They might be different from yours, but perhaps because I spend day in day out with severe disability and I see it as a life worth living.

And no we didn't get any counselling until we paid for it (as part of something else) . And yes it changed my views in ways I didn't think it would.