Frances Inglis, a UK mother who attempted to kill her severely medically disabled son, and then slipped past nurses a second time to finally dispatch him, has been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
The comments on my previous post about Inglis are overwhelmingly sympathetic to her actions. Frightening.
I think we are in very dangerous waters when the pro-death lobby has twisted public opinion to where cold-blooded murder is viewed by many as an act of love and motherly concern.
I am not kidding, wish I were.
Here’s one person’s take:
I am disgusted with these selfish people who insist that all life should be maintained, no matter the cost to the person who is actually living with the injury/disease.
Oh, I get it. There comes a point when you are severely disabled beyond which you should not live.
Here’s another:
If you were Thomas Inglis, and you were living this way, how long would you like to do that. One year, five years, 20 years?
Reminds me of the doctor’s line in a Nazi propaganda film pushing euthanasia: “Would you, if you were a cripple, want to vegetate forever?”
How about this justification:
Yes, she sounds a bit mad. As you or I might be too, given a year and a half of the horror she had lived through.
Poor Frances, so tormented that, why, of course, murder was the obvious solution – ends Thomas’ “suffering” from his nonresponsive state, and ends Frances’ suffering of having to put up with him.
Sounds like a deal to me.
And one more excerpt from the comments to my previous post, which, I think, is the epitome of upside down thinking:
She needs our compassion, not this ugly political posturing. What exactly are the tenets of a civilized society, does anyone remember?
Ah, I get it. Compassion for a murderer so intent on killing her offspring that when she at first did not succeed, she persisted until she did.
Better still: It’s actually “civilized” to kill the medically vulnerable and defenseless and uncivilized to care for them instead.
With this kind of thinking, and I’ll wager it’s very widely shared, we are at the bottom of the slippery slope and teetering on the brink of descending into a bestial depravity where when people are suffering, different, a bother, or perhaps even if they just upset us, that they need to die.
This time it was Thomas in an unresponsive state.
Next time. . . well, fill in the blank.
2 comments:
I don't know anything about the Inglis case but what I've read on your blog, so I can't speak to that directly. But I think enough people have been in the situation of watching a loved one suffer before their death to have formed their own, non pro-death lobby influenced opinion.
Wow...this has been an interesting read...I have to say that I have some experience when it comes to being a mother with a child with severe disabilities...she is often in pain and her life is as good as I can make it. I have learned, however, through reflection, that I cannot make a decision for her about her life. I can only support her in it. I have learned that I cannot mix my pain, my pain at watching her challenges, get mixed up with hers. I have to be the one to stand behind her and do everything I can to make her life comfortable and that includes fighting for services. This is where people get confused in some cases...they hurt at watching someone hurt and they can't deal with that. It's another thing altogether for the other person. My daughter, I know, loves to live. She has proven that to me because she is still here. When people are begging loved ones to die, maybe we should understand that we are failing them in providing appropriate comfort measures. I feel that more effort should be put in that direction.
Claire
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