Thursday, September 8, 2011

Assisted Suicide as Elder Abuse

Assisted Suicide as Elder Abuse » Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: Think about what it means when a suicidal person is told that their desire to be made dead is so right that rather than help the woman live, say through suicide prevention services or obtaining better pain control, a doctor is willing to fly with to Switzerland with her so she can return home as cargo. It seems to me that this is a modern form of elder abuse because it both agrees with the suicidal woman that her life is useless, and more generally, promotes suicide as a splendid way for the elderly to overcome to the difficulties of old age. That some would see prevention as the real abuse illustrates how far we have fallen.

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