Assisted Suicide? or Coerced Murder?

I know; the title doesn't really make the intended distinction clear. The various "assisted suicide" euphemisms when viewed with absolute objectivity all mean "coerced into letting a medical professional murder under the guise of empathy". MercatorNet features an excellent article on this topic by Michael Cook entitled "Is death better than disability?" In it, he reports on an even more insightful article from an important issue of the journal Disability and Health Journal by Dr Suzanne McDermott. Below are a few paragraphs from Mr Cook's article to whet your whistle. Read it, then read it, and then read it!

Several themes emerge from the articles.

First, the very existence of legalised assisted suicide leads to an expectation that the disabled, elderly and infirm should shuffle off their mortal coil a bit early to relieve the burden on their carers.

This fear has been ridiculed by supporters, who contend that all they want is choice at the end of life and that a lifelong experience of disability is different from the pain of seeing one’s life ebb away. They think that disability advocates are demonising euthanasia lobby groups and exaggerating their own vulnerability

Nonsense, says Diane Coleman, of the lobby group Not Dead Yet. She points out – quite eloquently -- that pity can be more dangerous than a mad doctor in a nursing home. We are, she says, "more frightened by the doctors who are out to help us but who see our lives as burdensome and who know little about options that make life with disability valuable."

Why should valuable resources be wasted on them, anyway? "Every week, I hear another person with a disability recount a disturbing interaction with a physician, nurse, or other health professional who clearly transmitted the view that life with a disability is inherently burdensome," she writes. "It does not feel safe to have one's life in the hands of someone who views that life as unfortunate, maybe even tragic or unfair."

As an aside: Whenever I pass an abortuary or "Planned Parenthood facility", I quietly make the sign of the cross and ask our Lord to close all abortuaries in our country and return our nation to a respect for the dignity of all human life from conception to natural death. I encourage you the reader to do so as well.