Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Law and Order Georgia Right-To-Die Advocates Plan Suicide for Undercover Agent With Nothing Better to Do
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 11:45 AM
No. Instead they wage culture war in a bid for a high profile bust--cuffing high-ranking members of the Marietta, GA-based Final Exit Network, a group that claims it provides only suicide guidance to the terminally ill. The investigation began back in June with an assisted suicide that seemed more gray than black and white. A Georgia man who was recovering from throat and mouth cancer committed suicide with the guidance of the Final Exit Network.
He wasn't dying, but he was somewhat disfigured from the surgeries. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent began investigating the group and posed as a cancer patient looking for a way out late last month. He claims he was told to buy a helium tank and plastic mask, and that FEN members would hold his arms down while he asphyxiated.
This is contrary to FEN's website, which says members don't directly participate in a suicide. I think the only thing that would make this a crime is the physical restraint. Now whether the agent is telling the truth, or is just interested in a high-profile case, who knows? It's the word of a bunch of Kevorkian wackos against a state investigator.
But it brings to the fore all kinds of interesting debates. The law on the subject is pretty vague. Palliative care can be provided to comfort the dying, even if it hastens death. But a doctor can't just hasten death, which strikes me as a particularly fine line. If you'll recall, Freud had his physician assist his own suicide after suffering from an invasive skin malignancy.
The argument against doctors assisting in a patient's suicide is that it goes against the moral code. But ending a life to prevent suffering is, in my opinion, probably more natural than keeping someone alive against their will. Death is one of the most natural stages of life. Perhaps it's time for this society to reexamine its queasiness regarding the end of life.
Thoughts, PITW readers?
Comments (12)
Showing 1-12 of 12
Thoughts, PITW readers?
Yeah, what is with the elaborate suicide methods? What ever happened to the ol' gun in the mouth? The running car in a closed garage? Razor blades to the wrists? Why buy a helium tank and mask...seems a little too convoluted.
Also, why do you need a group to do this if they aren't helping carry out the deed? I'm sure all this information is available elsewhere on the internet, doesn't seem like human-to-human interaction is needed on this front.
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If you actually *read* the material on the FEN website you linked to, you'll see that the group clearly states that they are *unique* in "helping* people who are NONterminally ill.
This means the Georgia case is hardly an aberration - in fact, there's another case in Arizona being investigated in which the alleged client had no physical complaints at all, but had struggled with emotional issues.
These people are extremists - and the GBI only became involved when family members of the Georgia man asked them to investigate.
This has *nothing* to do with any "fine lines" - people that FEN "helps" can be years and decades away from death and fully capable of pulling off their own suicides, as many people already do.
You might want to clear your head and get your facts straight before your write on this again.
Drake, I suppose it depends on how much of a hardliner you want to be about the definition of terminal.
You can suffer from congestive heart failure or Parkinson's and be years away from death, but the absence of anything resembling a quality of life has to be taken into account. Not everything is as black and white as Webster's definition of terminal.
In the end, I'm for personal freedom.
I'm not being a hardliner. In the past, when saying that so-called "right to die" activists didn't really want to limit "eligibility" for suicide to the terminally ill (six months or less to live) - I've been called alarmist and worse.
Now *you're* telling me it doesn't matter at all. Disability, disfigurement, whatever - they're all in the same boat as the dying.
Does your belief in "personal freedom" extend to young, nondisabled people who want to commit suicide? Or is it only old, ill and disabled people you hold in such (cough) high regard?
And personal freedom would tend to mean being willing to do it on your own, as thousands of Americans do every year.
I'm not sure where you read, in anything I've written so far, that I'm all for young people offing themselves.
And I'd say I hold the old, ill and disabled in a higher regard than you, because I certainly wouldn't presume to tell them what to do with their own lives.
Actually, you've made my point. I hadn't read that you extend the same "regard" to young nondisabled people.
The point is that since you think it must really suck to be disabled that is a good enough reason in and of itself to get "assistance." That's not respect - it's bigotry.
People with illnesses and disabilities can become suicidal for the exact same reasons that younger nondisabled people do - social isolation, personal losses, loss of feeling of worth.
But, hey, why look any farther than the request to commit suicide when you just *know* it must really suck to be like them?
Let's just suppose this guy had been told that although he was cancer free at the moment he would need two more operations before he wold be able to swallow and then a hip replacement.
And suppose he decided he had had enough and then found some people who would make sure he wasn't just temporarily depressed and could tell him how to go out quickly and painlessly and then have it appear to his friends and family that it wasn't suicide. Should he have the right to call them in.
And are these people wrong if they talk with him about other options beside suicide, don't encourage him, don't provide any means for him and don't help him.
Wow, Jim, that's a lot of supposing.
And, I must say, a lot of taking the words of FEN groupies as the total truth - not even allowing for a CYA factor.
This guy's a *stranger* - but this group specializes in arranging and witnessing the deaths of strangers. That wouldn't attract any weirdos, would it?
Let's suppose this guy isn't willing to try to commit suicide without someone sitting there by his side and telling him it's the right thing to do.
If that's the only conditions under which he'll commit suicide, couldn't we fairly call him "ambivalent?"
Compassion & Choices is a nonprofit organization that advocates for improving care and ending choice at the end of life. Our advocacy for physician aid in dying extends to terminally-ill, mentally competent adults.
Compassion & Choices has no affiliation with Final Exit Network. However, we are the nation's largest advocacy group for aid in dying--so we're getting lots of calls on this.
Policies on end-of-life choice in this country are merciless and irrational. With the exception of Oregon, Washington and Montana, talking of assistance in dying is done under the table, often away from a physician's care. A decent society must do better.
If there is condemnation, let it go to lawmakers are turning their backs on the prolonged suffering of patients who battle cancer for years and finally beg for assurance of a peaceful end.
Lawmakers' inaction led to citizen initiatives for Death with Dignity laws in Oregon and Washington to define a medical practice of aid in dying, lay out guidelines and set up regulatory oversight. The citizens had to adopt rational, merciful laws to legalize aid in dying because lawmakers weren't up to the task.
The upcoming trials for the FEN folks will be a clarifying experience for Americans. They will highlight the circumstances under which assistance in dying is socially acceptable, and those where it is socially unacceptable. And hopefully, it will spur lawmakers to ratify that distinction and pass compassionate, sensible laws in every state.
Carla Axtman
Online Community Builder
Compassion & Choices
compassionandchoices.org
Carla,
Your statement of "it's the fault of lawmakers" for not legalizing assisted suicide is identical to the vile logic of anti-abortion leaders who pulled short of condemning bombings and killings of abortion providers (i.e. "the *real* violence is the law"). It's vile when they do it and it's vile when C&C does it.
Not only that, but it's a cynical statement that relies on the ignorance of the reader of it. The laws in Oregon - in theory - limit eligibility to people with six months to live.
FEN specializes in "helping" people who wouldn't qualify in Oregon, so an Oregon-type law wouldn't change a thing in terms of FEN's activities.
Unless of course this is your way of announcing you are finally openly expanding your policy agenda.
Your statement of "it's the fault of lawmakers" for not legalizing assisted suicide is identical to the vile logic of anti-abortion leaders who pulled short of condemning bombings and killings of abortion providers (i.e. "the *real* violence is the law"). It's vile when they do it and it's vile when C&C does it.
Mr Drake--"vile" is apparently in the eye of the beholder.
Not only that, but it's a cynical statement that relies on the ignorance of the reader of it. The laws in Oregon - in theory - limit eligibility to people with six months to live.
I'm not sure why that's "cynical" and reliant upon "ignorance". Oregon's law requires a diagnosis of terminal illness with less than six months to live (as well as mental competence and adult status) in order to qualify for physician aid in dying. But C&C also (as I'm sure you're aware) advocates for more extensive pain management for patients as well. Studies show that the law in Oregon has in fact opened the way for that better pain management in the state.
FEN specializes in "helping" people who wouldn't qualify in Oregon, so an Oregon-type law wouldn't change a thing in terms of FEN's activities.
Actually, it might. Given how Oregon's law has helped open conversations between doctors and patients and increased pain management and education for healthcare workers--not to mention helped drive the demand for patient-centered care--fewer patients feel desperate and that they must go underground to relieve suffering.
Unless of course this is your way of announcing you are finally openly expanding your policy agenda.
Our agenda is to improve care and expand choice at the end of life. We're also working to advance patient-centered healthcare for all. I encourage those who want to learn more to please visit our website: www.compassionandchoices.org
Carla Axtman
Online Community Builder
Compassion & Choices
compassionandchoices.org
Thank you, Brantley Hargrove, for your thoughtful and honest piece on the outrageous assault by the GBI on Final Exit Network.
Your readers should know that, as an trained Exit Guide, we are taught that our basic principle is that we NEVER physically assist in a suicide. We only give information and, if asked, will be there to gently hold the subjects hands to let them know that they are not dying alone.
