"The Gravitas of Death"
Dignitas is a Swiss-based humanitarian group whose mission is to assist people with incurable illnesses. Dignitas counsels suicidal people, recommending continuing with life, but they will humanely assist in suicide if all else fails. It offers professionally supervised assisted suicide to people who feel their lives are no longer worthwhile living, who cannot see any solution to overwhelming illness.
After intense discussion, they will offer non-judgemental assistance to those who insist this is their considered desire.
A Canadian couple has, for years, been trying to establish and conclude their wish to die together. Betty Coumbias, an elderly woman resident in Vancouver, has determined that she cannot live without the presence of her husband, and wants to die alongside him. George Coumbias suffers from heart disease.
Not everyone agrees in assisted suicide, although there are many who do. A Toronto euthanasia advocate claims people have the right to determine when and where they will die, with dignity and without regret, a decision made with a sound mind. An ethics professor at McGill University opposes euthanasia: "We lose the gravitas of death. Death is no longer put in a moral context."
Ludwig Minelli, director of Swiss-based Dignitas, is in the process of asking officials of the Canton of Zurich to give doctors the authority to provide lethal drugs in accordance with the wishes of the Coumbias, husband and wife. "She told us, here in my living room, 'If my husband goes with Dignitas, I would go at the same time with him'" Mr. Minelli informed an interviewer.
A 2007 documentary by an Oscar-winning Canadian film-maker highlighted the-then 71-year-olds attempting to arrange a joint assisted suicide, in a visit to Switzerland. In The Suicide Tourist, Mrs. Coumbias explained: "From the day we got married, [my husband] was all my life. I love my two daughters, but I love him more, and I don't think I can face life without him, and since we read about Dignitas, we felt what would be better than to die together, you know, to die in each other's arms?"
Mr. Coumbias is severely ill. Mrs. Coumbias still enjoys perfectly good health. They love one another deeply, and she is dependent upon his presence for meaning in her life. Without him, life would have no meaning. Why go on living a meaningless existence, a painful, tortured long night of memory of love, affection, companionship and joy in life transported elsewhere?
These are mature, intelligent people, more than capable of recognizing what they want of life, and death. They don't need the state to intervene, to 'protect' them from themselves. They need the dignity of respect for their choice. They will be mourned by their children, but they have the right to determine for themselves how they wish to dispose of what is left of their lives.
And so be it.
After intense discussion, they will offer non-judgemental assistance to those who insist this is their considered desire.
A Canadian couple has, for years, been trying to establish and conclude their wish to die together. Betty Coumbias, an elderly woman resident in Vancouver, has determined that she cannot live without the presence of her husband, and wants to die alongside him. George Coumbias suffers from heart disease.
Not everyone agrees in assisted suicide, although there are many who do. A Toronto euthanasia advocate claims people have the right to determine when and where they will die, with dignity and without regret, a decision made with a sound mind. An ethics professor at McGill University opposes euthanasia: "We lose the gravitas of death. Death is no longer put in a moral context."
Ludwig Minelli, director of Swiss-based Dignitas, is in the process of asking officials of the Canton of Zurich to give doctors the authority to provide lethal drugs in accordance with the wishes of the Coumbias, husband and wife. "She told us, here in my living room, 'If my husband goes with Dignitas, I would go at the same time with him'" Mr. Minelli informed an interviewer.
A 2007 documentary by an Oscar-winning Canadian film-maker highlighted the-then 71-year-olds attempting to arrange a joint assisted suicide, in a visit to Switzerland. In The Suicide Tourist, Mrs. Coumbias explained: "From the day we got married, [my husband] was all my life. I love my two daughters, but I love him more, and I don't think I can face life without him, and since we read about Dignitas, we felt what would be better than to die together, you know, to die in each other's arms?"
Mr. Coumbias is severely ill. Mrs. Coumbias still enjoys perfectly good health. They love one another deeply, and she is dependent upon his presence for meaning in her life. Without him, life would have no meaning. Why go on living a meaningless existence, a painful, tortured long night of memory of love, affection, companionship and joy in life transported elsewhere?
These are mature, intelligent people, more than capable of recognizing what they want of life, and death. They don't need the state to intervene, to 'protect' them from themselves. They need the dignity of respect for their choice. They will be mourned by their children, but they have the right to determine for themselves how they wish to dispose of what is left of their lives.
And so be it.
Labels: Canada, Companions, Health, Human Relations
posted by Pieface @ 7:03 PM
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