Toothless Brit Law Against Assisted Suicide

The pro-death crowd in the UK has hammered away at laws criminalizing assisted suicide for the last several years.

They have been very successful.

From high-profile advocacy among activists such as Debbie Purdy, whose fight to commit assisted suicide at the Swiss death clinic Dignitas without her husband being charged in the UK; to the drumbeat of assisted suicide as a dignified and ethical way of killing; to the in-your-face “heroes” who have publicly flaunted UK law by assisting suicides in the UK, the law itself is beginning to falter.

It began after Purdy forced UK legal authorities to issue a “clarification” on laws allowing for the prosecution of those who assist in another’s suicide. The “clarification” actually muddied the waters even more and certainly left an impression that prosecution was unlikely.

This has just been reinforced by Michael Bateman, who assisted in his wife’s suicide and then went public, essentially calling the law’s bluff.

Unsurprisingly, the law faltered. After much staring at their collective legal navels, the Brit authorities have decided not to prosecute Bateman, who openly admitted breaking the law.

The message is now clear in the UK: It’s OK to kill people because the law will look the other way - not even look the other way – but to come out siding with the criminal.

From London's Evening Standard.

Husband who helped wife to die will not be prosecuted.

A devoted husband will not be prosecuted for assisting the suicide of his 62-year-old wife, Crown prosecutors announced today.

They said there was sufficient evidence to take Michael Bateman to court over his wife Margaret's death last October but a trial would not be in the public interest.

Mr Bateman helped place a plastic bag over the head of his wife who died from inhaling helium at the family home in Birstall, West Yorkshire. more

This Is What Government-Run Health Care Looks Like

Those of us who see Obamacare as a distinct step backwards are often branded as alarmist and out of touch. When we point to the regular horrors of government run systems, especially the UK, we’re shouted down with healthy dollops of “it-can’t-happen-here-because-the president-said-it-won't.”

Read on.

But before you do, look at this photo from London’s MailOnline:

Not pretty.

It’s a photo taken in a UK (government run) hospital of 84-year-old Clara Stokes. The photo was taken by her outraged daughter who discovered that her mom was living a nightmare – starved, dehydrated, and lying in her own feces.

Apparently, the ward was very short-staffed, to the point that Clara's family members were not only forced helped her, but also other patients who were in similar circumstances.

Here's a partial list of horrors. If this isn't clear, cold abuse of a person with a severe medical disability, I don't know what is:

Maltreatment 1:

Doctors and nurses who misplaced health notes even thought Mrs Stokes was a man for the first two days, after she was admitted on December 16.

Maltreatment 2:

A temporary nurse misread Mrs Stokes' notes and forced uncrushed tablets down her throat, almost causing her to choke to death.

Maltreatment 3:

She [Clara's daughter] added: 'We finally walked in and my daughter said what is that under her arm? We lifted it up and she was covered in her own diarrhoea.

Maltreatment 4:

Helpless and confused after suffering a stroke, the 84-year-old was left dehydrated, hungry and lying in her own faeces in a hospital bed for six hours. . . . 'She was paralysed and couldn't call for help. This was after 3pm in the afternoon and the last time she had been checked was at 9am.'

Maltreatment 5:

Just 24 hours later the family found a stricken Mrs Stokes' foot trapped between bed posts caused by a faulty bed pump. It was not known how long she was trapped and had to be freed by the matron.

The hospital, of course, denies, denies, denies. Here’s part of the snippy statement issued by the hospital spokesperson:

'We regret that Mrs Stokes' family have felt the need to complain about her care while she was on ward 17 and ward 15 and the hospital has apologised for any distressing circumstances recognising how upsetting some aspects of personal care can be for relatives.

Stay tuned, because I’ll bet my last dollar that the pro-death crowd will spin the horrible photo above as a case of people dying “without dignity,” and use it as a propaganda tool, captioning Clara’s abuse with: This is not dying with dignity: Support legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Frances Inglis Does Not Deserve to be on Trial for Murder. . . No, wait . . .

The UK press has been all atwitter about a sensational murder trial now under way in London. I’m not sure why, given the general cheerleading done by the UK media for assisted suicide and euthanasia.

On trial at the Old Bailey is Frances Inglis:

In 2007, Inglis’ son, Thomas, had been involved in some kind of altercation and was being taken to hospital by ambulance. His injuries were apparently minor. However, Thomas jumped from the ambulance, hit his head on the road, and sustained severe brain damage. He’s been in a deep coma ever since, although medical consensus was that since the accident he had been making some improvements and could well have recovered some function.

Too bad his mother was Frances Inglis. She immediately became obsessed with ending his life, repeatedly making the case to anyone who would listen that she did not think any treatment was in her son's best interest. She visited her son almost constantly and was described by Thomas’ brother, Alexander, as “obsessive and negative.”

She took matters into her own hands – twice.

Only 10 days after the accident, Inglis decided that she had to “put her son out of his misery.” So she injected him with a lethal dose of morphine. While Thomas was successfully resuscitated, he had been without oxygen long enough that his brain damage was much worse.

Frances Inglis was not a happy camper.

Not because she was arrested for attempted murder, but because her son was still alive.

What’s a mother to do?

Why, try again, of course.

And she did.

Out on bail, a condition of which was that she go nowhere near Thomas, she disguised herself as Thomas' aunt, fooled the nurses, and injected Thomas with a fatal dose of heroin.

Horrific, I think we can all agree. However, I must say that I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

Let’s be clear, shall we?

Frances Inglis and the pro-euthanasia and assisted suicide crowd are pretty much on the same page of the playbook:

They both see killing people as a way to put them out of their misery.

They would both agree that Thomas’ life was not worth living.

They would both think killing OK because there’s little or no quality of life for people in this condition.

They would both acknowledge that people in persistent nonresponsive states are as good as dead, so killing them is not a problem.

I think Frances Inglis is getting a bad rap.

If she had pulled a Debbie Purdy and fought passionately in the press to take Thomas to Dignitas in Switzerland for assisted suicide, just as the parents of Daniel James did, she’d be a free woman.

She’d also be a hero instead of a murderer.

UK: Might You Die Because You are Unable to Say You Want to Live?

There is no doubt that Baroness Campbell of Surbiton made the difference in a very important debate in the UK House of Lords last week.

Speaking in opposition to an amendment proposed by Lord Falconer, which sought to decriminalize the actions of people who help others commit suicide, the good Baroness delivered a compelling speech that was the main reason the amendment was defeated.

Baroness Campbell, born with a degenerative muscular condition, understood the implications of the amendment, which was generated by the intense reporting over the last few years of many UK citizens, who, accompanied by others, had travelled to Switzerland for assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic (here, here, here, here).

Ahead of the debate, Baroness Campbell penned a persuasive public letter laying out her position. ISDB, along with a number of other US and UK disability advocacy organizations, was a signatory to the letter.

Last Sunday, Baroness Campbell detailed her struggles and her ultimate conviction that her life was worth living.

She also noted that in one hospital emergency, where she was unable to speak for herself, she was lucky to have had her husband Roger there to speak for her, because it was clear that the doctors were going to let her die, and had already agreed on a “do not resuscitate” order, ostensibly because of her poor quality if life.

I was horrified to learn that it was only after Roger showed the doctors a photograph of Baroness Campbell getting an honorary doctorate in law from Bristol University that they were persuaded that she did, indeed, have a good “quality of life.”

That’s what we’ve come to: Having to prove to our doctors that our lives are worth living, and therefore worth saving.

Is there still anyone who thinks that, had Roger not been at his wife’s side, that she would be giving an interview in her sunny garden last Sunday?

Is there still anyone who doesn’t think that among the many thousands of people with medical and other disabilities that turn up alone in UK hospitals in similar circumstances, that many are allowed or encouraged to die even if they want to live?

ISDB Signatory to Baroness Campbell’s Letter Opposing Proposed UK Pro-Assisted Suicide Amendments

Last week, in London, a motion was introduced in the House of Lords to strike down legislation that allowed for the prosecution of anyone helping another commit suicide. The motion was introduced by Lord Falconer to protect those who travel with another person seeking assisted suicide in foreign countries, and who then risked prosecution when they returned to the UK.

The motion was defeated, in part, because disability advocates and organizations in the US and the UK, including ISDB, joined as signatories to an opposing letter written by Baroness Campbell, a member of the House of Lords who has a disability.

Open Letter from Leaders of Disabled People’s Movement in UK and USA

Dear Sir,

As leaders of the disabled people’s movement in the UK and the USA, we are extremely concerned about how the proposed amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill will impact on the lives of disabled people.

If Lord Falconer’s amendment succeeds in the House of Lords on Tuesday 7 July then those who assist ‘terminally ill’ people to go abroad to end their lives in ‘suicide clinics’ would be immune from prosecution.

The phrase ‘terminally ill’ is not defined in the amendment, and could apply to people with a very wide range of chronic progressive illnesses some with life expectancy stretching to decades. Disabled people who experience progressive conditions understand far more than non-disabled people about what it is live with these pressures. We know what is acceptable as disease or disability progresses, and for the huge number of us who say no to assisted suicide, it is because we fear the changing culture such an amendment would bring. People without experience of disability, including our friends and families cannot predict what each stage of our personal journey will mean. Furthermore, financial and emotional conflicts of interest will always present an added burden to the situation. A law decriminalising assisted suicide would undoubtedly place disabled people under pressure to end their lives early to relieve the burden on relatives, carers or the state.

These concerns are not side issues that only affect disabled people. We are like society’s ‘canaries in the coalmine’ who can often see the dangers of potentially discriminatory legislation before others, as it impacts on us even before the deed is done. We are scared now; we will be terrified if assisted suicide becomes state-sanctioned.

The existing law, with the penalties it holds in reserve, causes potential assisters and those wishing to die, to think very carefully before acting. The discretion within the current law enables judges to exercise compassion in hard cases. What is not broken does not need fixing.

Disabled people have been largely silent in this debate which has been carried out in the media by clerics, non-disabled commentators and a small handful of individuals with terminal conditions who are supported by Dignity in Dying. Until people like us are present to engage in this highly complex and ethical debate, we must strongly oppose any device such as Lord Falconer’s amendment to get assisted dying in through the back door.

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton

Crossbench Peer

Liz Sayce, CEO, RADAR

Julie Newman, Chair, United Kingdom Disabled People’s Council (UKDPC)

David Morris, Chair of Independent Living Alternatives

Haqeeq Bostan, Director of New Disability Policy Forum

Diane Coleman, President, Not Dead Yet

Rachel Hurst, Disability Awareness in Action

Mike Smith, Chair, National Centre for Independent Living

Colin Revell, CEO, NeuroDiversity International (NDI)

Marilyn Golden, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF)

Alison Davis, National Coordinator, No Less Human

Dr. Mark Mostert, Director, Institute for the Study of Disabilities & Bioethics (ISDB)

Alice Maynard, Director, Future Inclusion

Linda Burnip, Executive Health and Safety Officer for Warwickshire and Coventry CDP

Liz Crow, Roaring Girl Productions

Stephen Drake, Research Analyst, Not Dead Yet

Adrian Whyatt, Chair, NeuroDiversity International (NDI)

Keith Armstrong, Historian, writer, musician and video maker

Dawn Willis, Activist/Trainer affiliated to RETHINK

Professor Colin Barnes, Centre for Disability Studies, University of Leeds

Louise Clifford, Daughter of Max Clifford

Leonard Zandrow, General Counsel, National Spinal Cord Injury Association

Ann Macfarlane OBE, Kingston CIL

Andrew Bruce, East Sussex CIL Development Worker

Tara Flood, Director, Alliance for Inclusive Education

Andrew Little, Director, Ahead Disability Equipment & Consultancy LLP

Alison Cater, Director, Ahead Disability Equipment & Consultancy LLP

Janice Ollerton, Disabilities Studies Researcher/Activist (Australia)

Joseph M. Camilleri, CHAIR, Kummissjoni Nazzjonali Persuni b'Dizabilità (Malta)

Julie McNamara, Activist / Director Crossings Theatre

Kate Nash, Not Dead Yet

Roxanne Homayoun, Direct Action Network

Dr Ju Gosling, Chair, Regard

John W. Smith, Coordinator Disabled Peoples Alliance, Northamptonshire

Kelly Buckland, Executive Director, National Council on Independent Living

Pro-Death Propaganda Steals the Show in the UK

I’m human, just like everyone else, and so when I make a prediction that turns out to be correct, I have been known to say, “I told you so.”

Last January 12th I wrote of assisted suicides at Dignitas in Switzerland, which are hardly gentle and loving:

Here’s the kicker: This nightmare will hardly engender much shock or outrage, I’m afraid.Why? Because the spin and pressure will be to pass laws to make places where people kill themselves nice and comfy, clean, and warm.

Well, I told you so.

A while back, I wrote that the UK was now ground zero for the pro-death movement, currently focusing on the thin end of the wedge, assisted suicide. Assisted suicide is a wedge because the ultimate aim of the pro-death movement is not only legalization of assisted suicide, but also the eventual legal availability of euthanasia for anyone, at any time, for any reason.

I have also written quite a bit about the Swiss killing group, Dignitas (here, here, here, here), who are happy to help kill people – for a price.

Dignitas has become infamous lately because of the many people from the UK who have flocked to their killing facility (read: grubby apartment, strange looking people) in Switzerland. Many of these cases have been widely reported in the media. Dan James. Craig Ewert. The list goes on and on.

I predicted that instead of revealing the lie that assisted suicide is a heinously selfish and soulless act, the pro-death spin would be that the UK laws would be made to be the culprit – that’s it’s not fair or kind to ship people off to unfamiliar places in Europe to commit assisted suicide. They should be allowed to do it at home in familiar surroundings.

Ergo, it’s the LAW that’s the problem, not helping killing people.

Today I’m saddened, but not surprised, that the UK pro-death spin was exactly what I said it would be. 

Read on.

The pressure is building inexorably in the UK to overturn the laws that make assisted suicide illegal on at least two fronts.

The first is the persistent Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis. She has already made the decision to got to Dignitas to be killed, and wants her husband to be there. She has petitioned all of Britain’s lower courts to clarify whether he will be prosecuted for aiding and abetting her suicide when he returns to the UK. They have all refused to do so. Tomorrow, Purdy takes her case to the highest court in the land, the House of Lords.

It’s important to note that others who have done this have not been prosecuted, but Purdy wants more: She wants the law to say unequivocally that there will be no legal action.

Second, a major piece in today’s edition of London’s Mail reported that there are currently almost 800 people lined up to be killed in Switzerland. 34 have been cleared by their doctors for assisted suicide because they are terminally ill and supposedly competent to make the decision. Others have already set their dates with death. 

This is all bad enough, but, again, let’s look at the media propaganda:

The number of Britons thinking of travelling to the Dignitas suicide clinic in Switzerland has almost reached 800. The figure is ten times the level of seven years ago.

Spin 1: The numbers are increasing, we must do something, this is a growing problem! There is a demand for assisted suicide by the British people!

Well, to me, we might want to ask why there is such a demand. Could it be the pro-death mission of fear, especially playing on peoples’ fear of abandonment, is meant to make more people want to die by assisted suicide?

More:

There is massive public support for a change in the law to allow assisted dying, with polls regularly showing more than 80 per cent of the public want it made legal.

Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, which campaigns to allow assisted suicide, said: 'There is clearly a growing demand for a well regulated, legal right for people with terminal illness who are mentally competent to end their life if they choose to.'

Spin 2: If the majority want it, it must be right. Laws should be changed if 8 out of 10 people think they should be changed. That’s how we’ll make it safe and legal for you to have someone help you kill yourself.

Really? Let’s remember that history is full of examples where some very nasty things happened based on popular opinion. Sterilization comes to mind. I’m willing to bet that most of the 80% are significantly misinformed – no, lied to – and that they are responding to pro-death propaganda.

Let’s continue:

The 1961 Suicide Act criminalises anyone who aids, abets, counsels or procures someone else's suicide, and some relatives have been questioned by police.

Oh my gosh!!! The police questioned some relatives related to their possibly breaking the law? What’s next? Public executions? (Pardon the sarcasm).

I repeat: In all these very high-profile cases, what the UK authorities have actually done is turn a blind eye to these goings-on. Seems to me that if they had followed the letter of the law diligently, a lot of relatives who helped kill people at Dignitas would already be charged, found guilty, and be in jail.

But it’s the spin, you see - implying that those big bad Bobbies are hauling off vanloads of poor grieving relatives to languish in the basements of Her Majesty’s Prisons.

Ergo:

Baroness Jay said: 'It's a tragic anomaly that people who are giving a last loving assistance to a loved one find themselves under the threat of imprisonment.'

So, you know what comes as the climax of the piece, don’t you?

Read on:

Lesley Close, who went to Dignitas in 2003 with her brother John, a sufferer from motor neurone disease sufferer, said: 'More and more British people will be travelling to Switzerland to die because more people are aware of the compassionate and peaceful death you can achieve there . . . The interest in Dignitas underlines the case for reform of the law. We need the same facility here.'

Big bad law. Big bad Bobbies. So uncaring of those saints who are helping kill people.

Nice gentle, compassionate Dignitas, where all is dappled light and calm.

However, the truth will out, in my opinion, because there’s no future in assisted suicide.

The Swiss Way Part I: The Dingy Business of Killing People

I’ve detailed in past posts how people, especially from European countries where assisted suicide is illegal, have been flocking to Switzerland to kill themselves. The Swiss killing machine, Dignitas, is the only pro-death Swiss organization that kills foreign visitors.

They want as many people dead as possible, you see. It’s where Dan James and Craig Ewert went to their deaths.

Just for the record, this macabre tourism happens enough that it even has a name – “euthotourism.” 

Sidebar: A sharp entrepreneur is proposing a travel/death package for Kenyans to Switzerland, all inclusive!!

Nice.

However, “dignity” is not exactly what people have been finding among the Alps and the cuckoo clocks.

Read on.

A little over a year ago, Maxine Coombes decided the extent of her motor neuron disease meant it was time to die. She scrimped and saved the $15,000 for her final trip and travelled to Dignitas accompanied by her sister and her son, Paul Clifford.

Returning to the UK after Coombes’ death, Clifford didn’t see what happened next as dignified at all.

London’s Daily Mail reported what Clifford found. He

said the family had had a “terrible” experience and likened the flat where his mother died to a “backstreet abortion place” with graffiti-covered walls.

To add to his shock, when [Paul’s mother] raised concerns that her son might struggle to cope with her death, a member of staff said he, too, could die at a “cut price” rate.

“When we arrived at the place it was a block of flats, with a buzzer marked Dignitas but there was no answer. We were standing there for about three-quarters of an hour until a man arrived wearing a leather jacket with a sports bag over his shoulder, a dirty blue Tshirt, jeans with the knees cut out and smoking a roll-up [joint]. There was paint and graffiti on the walls outside, and the same on the door to the apartment. Inside there was a coffee table, four chairs around it, a bench, and a little washbasin.

After Coombes died, Paul described his interaction with the Dignitas representatives:

“He wanted us to go out of the room while he checked she was dead. We had to sit on a flight of stairs which stank of urine. We went back in but two police officers, the state prosecutor and two staff and a medical examiner arrived. We were asked loads of questions, with my mum still slumped there . . . in her wheelchair. We were there for at least two and a half hours.

During the questioning, Mr Clifford said, [a Dignitas assistant] rolled a cigarette while a female member of staff with a red “punkrock” hairstyle took her dog out for a walk.

After the police were “satisfied” with their answers, the pair had to leave again. When they were let back in to spend a few minutes with his mother’s corpse, they found her on a bench “going blue”, covered in a “dirty blanket like half a curtain”, with “her clothes chucked on the floor”.

The banal casualness of death.

Dirty, stinky, routine.

Unremarkable. Cold.

Just like brushing your teeth: A necessary waste of time.

Here’s the kicker: This nightmare will hardly engender much shock or outrage, I’m afraid.

Why? Because the spin and pressure will be to pass laws to make places where people kill themselves nice and comfy, clean, and warm.

Decency and love have disappeared.

Barbarity is cool.

In the UK, Having a Disability Might Make People Want to Kill You

Given the state of affairs in the UK related to futile care, the growing disregard of those who have medical and other disabilities, and the growing popularity of assisted suicide, I must admit I’m a little baffled at the fuss caused by a story in The Times.

The British press was all a-twitter because they got a glimpse of the reality of how the culture of death sees people with disabilities.

I’m shocked that they’re shocked.

Here’s what happened:

59 year-old Barry Baker, a pensioner who could only walk using two canes, called 999 and reported that he was having severe chest pain. He was pretty sure he was having a heart attack.

The emergency operator kept Baker on the line while EMTs were dispatched. By the time they arrived, Baker had collapsed.

One big problem. At least for the two EMTs: The phone line to 999 was still open, the tape rolling.

From The Times:

Two ambulancemen have been arrested by police after they were heard allegedly discussing whether they should bother to resuscitate a disabled man who had collapsed at home and subsequently died. . . . [and] making disparaging comments about the state of the house. . . . They are said to have discussed what to tell ambulance control and decided to say that Mr Baker was already dead when they got there.

I don’t see the problem. What the EMTs did is a perfectly logical outcome of a society that has

• prominent people suggesting those who are ill or disabled should be “put down” (Baroness Warnock);
  
• a prominent Scottish politician calling for legislating assisted suicide for children;
  
• broadcast an assisted suicide on a major TV channel;
  
• public opinion that increasingly thinks that old people or those with severe disabilities should do everyone a favor and kick the bucket; and
  
• a penchant for lionizing families who “did the right thing” by participating in the assisted suicide of a loved one.
  

I’ll bet that the EMTs got a fair dose of futile care theory in their medical training.

I’d bet even further that their profession is riddled with the idea that “quality of life” has to be of the highest order or life’s not worth living - or saving. 

Best bet ‘til last: If you think this doesn’t happen everywhere, on many calls to people with medical and other disabilities, but which slip by because the tape’s not running, then I’m the Queen of England.