Posted on 10/20/2014 10:50:40 AM PDT by wagglebee
A long-term pro-euthanasia campaigner has starved herself to death over five weeks because she could not have her life ended legally.
Jean Davies, 86, did not suffer from a terminal illness but said her life had become ‘intolerable’ after a series of fainting spells. She died at home in Oxford on 1 October after giving an extensive interview to the Sunday Times.
Mrs Davies became involved in the right-to-die campaign as far back as the 1970s and was president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies from 1990 to 1992 and was chair of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society UK (now Dignity in Dying).
In 1997, her book Choice in Dying argued for British law to allow doctors to end their patients’ lives. According to her daughter she died peacefully and was ‘smiling at everyone’ the day before.
I was asked to comment on this story by the Sunday Times and my comments have been picked up in several follow up accounts in other papers (eg. Times, Express, Guardian, Daily Mail).
Essentially here, we have a long-time euthanasia campaigner attempting to use her own death to further the cause she has championed throughout her life.
Ironically her own daughter said in an interview that her case proves those who want to die already have power to take their own lives and that the law therefore does not need to be changed.
Her GP, a Christian who does not believe in assisted dying, told the Sunday Times he had treated her symptoms after consulting his defence union.
The full quote I gave the Sunday Times is below. They chose to major on the part about ‘emotional blackmail’ and not to include the reference to Helga Kuhse. But Kuhse’s comments deserve wider circulation:
‘It is not illegal to starve and dehydrate oneself to death but neither is it right. My fear is that this unusual and tragic case will be seized upon by the pro-euthanasia lobby to further their agenda of legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia.
It is the same technique used by Helga Kuhse, then President of the World Federation of Societies for the Right to Die at their 5th Biennial Congress on the Right to Die held in Nice, France, September 1984 when she said, ’If we can get people to accept the removal of all treatment and care – especially the removal of all food and fluids – they will see what a painful way this is to die and then, in the patient’s best interests, they will accept the lethal injection.’
We should recognise this ploy for what it is and reject it. However we might sympathise with this woman’s condition, by deliberating choosing to go public with it she is adopting a campaigning stance in the footsteps of Kuhse. It is, if you like, a subtle form of emotional blackmail aimed at softening opposition to a change in the law to allow assisted suicide or euthanasia.
There are good reasons for keeping the law as it is. Any change in the law to allow assisted suicide or euthanasia would place pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives for fear of being a financial, emotional or care burden upon others. This would especially affect people who are disabled, elderly, sick or depressed.
The present law making assisted suicide and euthanasia illegal is clear and right and does not need changing. The penalties it holds in reserve act as a strong deterrent to exploitation and abuse whilst giving discretion to prosecutors and judges in hard cases.
Persistent requests for euthanasia are extremely rare if people are properly cared for so our priority must be to ensure that good care addressing people’s physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs is accessible to all.’
LifeNews.com Note: Dr. Peter Saunders is a doctor and the CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a British organization with 4,500 doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. This article originally appeared on his blog. He is also associated with the Care Not Killing Alliance in the UK.
Now THAT’S Commitment.
Ironic how a woman who Wants to die lives to 86.
And others, who are desperate for just one more day, die so much younger.
Obviously she considered herself as being “no longer any use to the herd”.
Didn't God endow us with the ability of FREE CHOICE?
Sorry, but I have a more compassionate view of God and his choice of who He allows into heaven. I don't think He's going to deny passage into heaven simply because a terminally ill person has chosen to end their own life.
If He does then He's not an entity I wish to put my faith in...........
I once had thoughts of suicide when the batteries in my television remote were out and I didn't feel like going to the store.
Kinda like selling your car for gas money.
Good riddance.
Agree. Something isn't right about this story.
Ah, now it makes sense. She did get her assisted suicide after all hence the smile on the way out.
But you’re already dead. ;-P
I think so. I found another article, and it details her timeline a little more.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/19/right-to-die-campaigner-starved-herself-jean-davies
Oh how sad Laz
What the kids (inexperienced young people) can't stand is that they're ALWAYS "wrong" when they act like normal kids, and they garner additional punishment when they try to defend themselves.
They haven't learned the tricks and deceptions the leftist bullies use to manipulate and trick them, so they are at risk for depression.
Thanks for the ping!
Beat me to it.
Liberals always give you that phony smile while they are saying or doing something outrageous or stupid. Glad the daughter has the good sense to realize the law doesn't need to be changed. Because the moment it is, there will be exploitative deaths to get at the inheritance early. Because "where there's a will, there's a relative."
That's because the left wing is all about unhappiness. They are miserable human beings, dissatisfied with life as it is, malcontent, determined to "change" everything to make the world more perfect according to them, unwilling to recognize that all humans are imperfect and life is a series of compromises in the midst of joy and sorrow. When leftists take office, they do so by building a coalition of misfits and persons whose discontents and covetousness can be exploited and amassed; and if they don't have 51%, they ramp up the victimology and false promises of redemption until they reach the tipping point.
Then, chaos ensues as they take over and start changing everything, especially the things that don't need changing or should never be changed. They take their half out of the center; and if the orange they want is on the bottom of the display pyramid, they take it anyway and let all the rest tumble and roll in the aisles and get bruised. Soon, waste and misery are everywhere. A few interest groups are happy for awhile; but most people start to feel there is nothing to look forward to except more misery, waste and loss. People with no God kill themselves.
As for the rest, when it gets bad enough, people finally elect a conservative government. The conservative reformers stay in office just long enough to clean about 30% of it up. Then they get thrown out of office in favor of the next pretty leftist face with a slate of empty promises. So it's always four steps forward, ten steps collapse, two steps forward, three steps back -- never forward long enough to get fully aright; and this is how we have lost our republic.
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