Latimer Case: Not Black and White

Whooee! I feel sorry fer Latimer and I don't think he represents a threat to anyone, personally.

I do defer to spokespersons for the severely disabled, though. Who decides whether a non-communicative disabled person lives or dies?

If, somehow, the poor soul is able to make their wishes for assisted suicide known, they deserve the right to die in dignity and their assistant(s) do not deserve prosecution.

As a rural/small town dweller, I see the real lack of support for primary caregivers outside large urban centres. I can see how someone like Latimer could be at his wit's end. I see that in many desperate people but the answer cannot be to remove the problem by eliminating a life.

I'll qualify that. If the PWD (person with disability) can and does communicate a desire to end his or her miserable existence, that's assisted suicide. If that permission is not granted, there is no way to know that it is what the person wants. It is, after all, the disabled person's life to end -- not the caregiver's.

In all this time, Latimer must surely have searched his soul. He cannot claim to be so telepathic as to know what his child wished for. Even if he did know her wishes, she's a minor and it was his parental responsibility to keep her alive.

If we condone Latimer's mercy killing of a non-communicative child, we open up a door to the elimination of other non-communicative disabled persons. The disabled understand that they place a burden on society and they fear society will value other things like healthcare savings over their right to life. I think it's a valid fear in a world that places more value on it's economy than on it's ecology and environment. Society and the economy are self-serving and serving the disabled and their caregivers is costly.

The disabled have had to fight for every concession we've ever made. Now, they're fighting for their right not to be exterminated.

JimBobby

P.S. This post was originally written as a comment on Shagya Blog.