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 III: Follow the Cash

Well, I hadn’t planned a Part III about the Swiss death machine Dignitas, but as I suspected, we’re starting to see a trickle of information about the rotten underbelly of the business of killing in the heart of civilized Europe.

It’s the money, stupid……..

On Sunday, London’s Daily Mail reported that nurse Soraya Wernli, who was all for helping people kill themselves, went to work for Dignitas several years ago.

Dignitas bigwig Ludwig Minelli put Nurse Wernli quickly to work sorting out the contents of black plastic bin liners that were cluttering a stairwell.

What she found changed what she thought of Dignitas, it’s claims to dignified dying, and put pay to the whole notion of patients and their loved ones being treated with respect:

Minelli said I should empty the sacks onto a long table - they were huge - and sort through everything. I opened one up and was horrified by what was inside. Mobile phones, handbags, ladies' tights, shoes, spectacles, money, purses, wallets, jewels.

I realised these were possessions which had been left behind by the dead. They had never been returned to family members. Minelli made his patients sign forms saying the possessions were now the property of Dignitas and then sold everything on to pawn and second-hand shops.

I felt disgusted. You see these old photos of people in Nazi death camps sorting through the possessions of those who had been gassed. Well, right then and there, that is how I felt.

Wernli soon realized that Dignitas was, first and foremost, about cold, hard, cash. It was, she said, a 'production line of death concerned only with profits.'

She recalls clashing with Minelli about his deadly production-line. One case that especially irked her was the death of 74-year old Brit Reginald Crew:

Mr. Crew arrived in the morning and was dead just hours later,' she says. 'This was another of my many clashes with Minelli. I argued that it wasn't right that people land at the airport, are ferried to his office, have their requisite half-an-hour with a doctor, get the barbiturates they need and are then sent off to die.

This is the biggest step anyone will ever take. They should at least be allowed to stay overnight, to think about what they are doing. But Minelli would have none of it. He once said to me that if he had his way, he would have vending machines where people could buy barbiturates to end their lives as easily as if they were buying a soft drink or a bar of chocolate. I support assisted suicide - but not the way he went about it.

All well and good, Nurse Wernli, but your assumption is [misguided] compassion.

Minelli’s is money. A simple cash flow issue.

More people dead, more money made.

A win-win:

People want to die.

Minelli charges to help kill them.

They die.

He goes to the bank.

What’s not to like?

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.