OPinions on the woman who killed her son?

[SherriHewsonsNipple]

do you think she desverved 9 years?

Am i right in thinking he wasnt strictly speaking terminally ill

i just can't be 100% certain I wouldn't eventually do something like that though. You guys live with it and you know that you are not going to dream of doing that. But for me in my shoes never having experienced it, it seems wrong to judge somebody who ends the life of a severely permanently brain damaged child after 15 long years.

and what happens if the parent can't cope? is there somebody to come and cope for you?

riven you want me to judge and i just can't because it would be hypocritical of me with my two able-bodied. children. I could judge, but it's easy to judge. i'm sure it's not so easy to live what you and jimmy have lived with for 15 years.

i'm not saying it's NOT murder. You're right it is, but i'm not going to join any queue to stone people in your shoes who do NOT cope .

MaggieNilAonSneachta would you murder your child when they are 15(not sure why we are all talking about 15 years) of course not, so why is ok if they are disabeld.

i do see that it's murder. i just think that if a child is paralysed with no quality of life, then it is a grey area. Yes it's murder, but can you be 100% certain that it's wrong to end the life of somebody whose life is so poor.

I am not volunteering to draw that line, but I'm saying that i believe one does exist, where even if the LAW doesn't change, it becomes morally harder to condemn and easier to find some sympathy.

jimmy, you misunderstand me. if my child was in a car accident and was brain dead, i wouldn't want to end her life. i would cling to just her warm body if that's all i had. but i honestly feel that it is wrong of me to be definitely certain that somebody who has cared for a child who is paralysed and brain damaged for more than a decade is a murderer. i reserve judgment for each individual case.

brain dead and brain damaged are 2 totally different things.
and who decides that a disabled persons life has no worth, who would want that job?

well you win the argument because obviously murder is murder, but i still don't label somebody who turns off the life support machine of a child who's been in a permanent vegetative state for ten years with the same label as somebody who shoots a rival gang member.

why have you changed it to someone who is now brain dead?
that is a totally different thing than murdering a person who has brain damage

severe-brain damage is what i said to start off with.

anyway, as you say, 'murder is murder' but what would you do with the 'murderer' put her in prison with the serial killers and drug lords.?

By MaggieNilAonSneachta Fri 22-Jan-10 16:26:12
i just can't be 100% certain I wouldn't eventually do something like that though. You guys live with it and you know that you are not going to dream of doing that. But for me in my shoes never having experienced it, it seems wrong to judge somebody who ends the life of a severely permanently brain damaged child after 15 long years.

you said brain damaged there.
like riven, yes I think they should be in prison, as they are a muderer.

IMO, I think the problem was that there was no indication of the son's wishes. Personally, I do not have a problem with assisted suicide where it is the clear wish of the person who wants to die.

I think 9 years was harsh though.

but we're not talking about someone who couldn't cope with caring for a disabled child and who snapped in the heat of a moment are we? We're talking about a woman who pre-meditatively went to to her son's nursing home, yes nursing home because he wasn't being cared for at home (I'm not judging that btw just stating the point with reference to the perceived inability to cope), who entered under a false name (having previously been banned from being anywhere near him because of a previous attempt) threatened staff, locked herself in the room with him and administered a lethal dose of an illegal drug, and who stayed with him to ensure he died.

Even turning off life support is different to this. There is a difference between withdrawing treatment for eg and deliberately administering a drug with the intention of killing someone. Would people have felt it appropriate for this man's doctor to have administered a lethal overdose in order that he die? If not then why is it considered a brave act purely because it was his mother that did it?

Either deliberately killing someone is wrong or it isn't. You don't have degrees of how wrong it is according to who commits the act.

I am really uncomfortable with the idea that this woman was somehow brave and couragious for ending the life of her disabled son when actually there was a chance he would have recovered to a signifficant degree. I can totally see how someone might agree to turn off someone's life support if there is no hope of any recovery, but I still think there's a vast difference between that and deliberately administering a drug overdose, without which they would not have died.

And where do we draw the line in terms of which disabled people should be killed and which shouldn't? Who should be deamed to be the judge of whose quality of life makes them worth living and whose makes them subject to a death sentence?

It's a very slippery slope, and once we start relabelling the murder of one as bravery, we are potentially setting a precedent for the devaluation and illimination of disabled life without judgement or consequence.

Good post wannabe

Who could condemn someone for not being able to cope? Well, the woman who recently killed herself and her daughter received nothing but sympathy as far as I can recall.

The mother in this case did not attempt to cope. Within 3 months she has decided that her son would have no quality of life and it would be better if he died.

She had no right to make that decision for him. Perhaps he was aware of her acts. Doesn't bear thinking about.

Well said wannabe.

Can't say it any better so won't try.

But am always so shocked when people think it's ok to kill because they're disabled.

well said wannabe

I am sorry but taking somebody else's life is murder.

It doesnt matter how you dress it up and look at it.

This young man did not ask for his life to be ended, as is the case with assisted suicides.

If we think this is acceptable, feel sorry for her, understand why she did it where do we draw the line?

How mentally or physically disabled does a person have to be before it then becomes unacceptable?

None of us God, we do not have that right.

Life in prison for her.

And am I right in thinking that there was a court injunction banning her from access to him? So she was not dealing with him and living with on a daily basis?

She was not struggling to juggle a family, other able bodied children, jobs and a home life as well as disabled son.

So any argument that she "couldnt cope" is bullshit.

She got past security and murdered him.