Tom Shakespeare Makes a Less Than Honest Case For Assisted Suicide

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Tom Shakespeare is well-known in the disability community in the UK. In the US, it’s mostly the disability studies community that is familiar with him. Shakespeare has his feet planted in the realms of disability rights, bioethics and disability studies.

Over the past couple of years, Shakespeare has taken a strong position favoring legalization of assisted suicide for the “terminally ill” (although he generally doesn’t define “terminal”) and has harshly criticized disability activists and organizations that oppose such policies.

Therefore, it didn’t come as a surprise when Shakespeare published an essay in The Guardian yesterday, reiterating his support for legalization and his lack of respect for disability advocates and activists who oppose those efforts.

His essay is titled “A chance for dignity in dying” and carries a partial subtitle of “Jane Campbell is wrong” (referring to Campbell’s essay in the same paper).

Let me say it plainly: Tom Shakespeare is wrong. His essay relies on some rather easy platitudes, fuzzy assertions and some pretty gross misrepresentations of euthanasia laws.

After first relating that over 100 people from the UK have gone to Dignitas in Switzerland, Shakespeare writes:

This is not a progressive or humane state of affairs. First, because partners or friends who travel to support dying people are at risk of prosecution once they return, a problem that Debbie Purdy’s campaign has highlighted. Second, because organisations like Dignitas appear indiscriminate about whom they help to die. Available information suggests that at least five of the British people whom Dignitas has assisted did not have a terminal illness, but conditions such as spinal injury and diabetes.

Lord Falconer’s amendment is a temporary solution to the first problem, and one that is rightly backed by disabled peer Colin Low. The director of public prosecutions has indicated that the current practice of not prosecuting relatives is out of step with the law, which makes assisting suicide illegal in all circumstances.

First of all, it should come as no surprise to Shakespeare about the nonterminality of many of the “clients” accepted by Dignitas. Having a terminal illness or being close to death has never been a requirement for “eligibility” for their “services” – although having the right amount of cash is important.

Second, laws should address real problems. Shakespeare doesn’t point to any prosecutions of relatives accompanying family members to Dignitas, because there haven’t been any. That would include the families of people like Daniel James, a young man with tetraplegia. Does Shakespeare think that somehow granting immunity to the “terminal” cases will mean that cases involving nonterminally ill people will now be prosecuted? What does “terminal” mean, anyway? For the people with MS or age-related chronic conditions, which are terminal and which aren’t? Shakespeare seems unconcerned with such details.

But Shakespeare really goes beyond some familiar-sounding polemics when he offers gross distortions of euthanasia laws outside of the UK:

But the real answer is to bring in effective assisted dying legislation in Britain, designed for mentally competent adults in the later stages of terminal illness, and with suitable safeguards to protect vulnerable people from abuse. Across Europe, laws are being introduced to give access to assisted dying in terminal illness: the Netherlands led the way, but Belgium and Luxemburg have now introduced similar legislation, while Spain and France are now actively contemplating legal measures to help people at the end of life.

Bullshit alert: Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg don’t limit “eligibility” for assisted suicide and euthanasia to “terminal illness.” Either Shakespeare hasn’t bothered to research this or he is deliberately misleading readers. If it’s the former, it’s inexcusable from a scholar and if it’s the latter, it’s intellectually dishonest.

And, if Shakespeare had delved into the Netherlands a little more closely, he’d find too much to support disability rights activists he ridicules, as in the recent decriminalization of the euthanasia of disabled infants in that country.

Shakespeare, like all of us, is entitled to his opinion. And we should all be entitled to factual honesty and integrity when we debate these issues. –Stephen Drake

Breaking News (UK): Falconer Swiss Suicide Tourist Immunity Voted Down!

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This just in: The House of Lords has voted down the Falconer amendment to extend legal immunity from prosecution to families who take disabled and ill people to Switzerland to commit suicide with the “help” of Dignitas.

From the BBC:

The House of Lords has defeated a motion to change the law that makes it a crime for loved ones to help the terminally ill to travel abroad to die.

In introducing the proposal, Lord Falconer said there exists a legal “no-man’s land” that requires clarity.

The Lords voted to defeat the amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill by 194 to 141.

At least 115 people from the UK have gone to Swiss clinic Dignitas to die, but as yet no-one has been prosecuted.

The debate in the Lords thrust the issue of assisted suicide back into the spotlight and drew sharp criticism from church leaders and advocates for the disabled.

More on this later. –Stephen Drake

UK: Jane Campbell – “Assisted dying: not in our name”

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The latest move by euthanasia activists in the U.K. is a proposal to extend immunity from prosecution to family members taking terminally ill or disabled people to Switzerland for assistance in committing suicide. Jane Campbell (Baroness Campbell of Surbiton) has written a concise attack on the rationale for granting such immunity in today’s edition of The Guardian:

Today I and hundreds of other disabled and terminally ill people want you to know, we do not want assisted dying to be legalised for “people like us”. I will speak in the House of Lords against proposed amendments to the coroners and criminal justice bill that seek to set this country on the road to legalising assisted dying and, ultimately, euthanasia for people with terminal conditions.

Two distinguished peers, the former lord chancellor, Lord Falconer, and Lord Alderdice, want to remove the threat of prosecution from anyone who assists a disabled or terminally ill person to travel abroad for the purpose of being assisted to die.

She makes an excellent point in spelling out just who has not endorsed these amendments:

We are at odds with the supporters of today’s amendments, who say they only want to help disabled and terminally ill people. Not one organisation of or for disabled and terminally ill people has campaigned for the changes proposed. This includes organisations that advocate on behalf of people with multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease; two disabling conditions that are often referred to when describing who would benefit most from this legislation.

If you’re interested in how this battle is playing out in the U.K., you should read the rest of Jane Campbell’s commentary.

I only have one thing to add. The amendments are probably an initial step in a “slippery slope” political strategy. It is meant to act as a door opener that paves the way for eventual adoption of broader policies. For example, I would guess that within 1-2 years of this “immunity” granted to people travelling to Switzerland, there would be a very predictable follow-up:

Some people don’t have the money or don’t have the physical ability to travel to Switzerland. If we’ve provided comfort and cover for those with the wherewithal to travel to Switzerland, don’t we have to provide the same protections for those who want to help family members kill themselves at home?

Of course we do. That’s the plan. Don’t think of it as a “slippery slope” so much as a well-constructed roadway. –Stephen Drake

Another child dead – authorities taking it seriously, if belatedly

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Kristen LaBrie, mother of nine-year-old Jeremy Fraser, has been charged with attempted murder in connection with the child’s death in March.

Kristina Chew at Change.org has the story:

Yesterday LaBrie pleaded “not guilty” to a charge of attempted murder; she had earlier been charged with child endangerment. The July 6th Associated Press vis WBUR reports that Jeremy was diagnosed with a “severe form of autism” while young. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in October of 2006 and given an 85 percent to 90 percent chance of recovery. He received “large doses of chemotherapy” and his cancer went into remission. LeBrie was given prescriptions for medications for Jeremy to take at home and this is when the story turns more than puzzling.

According to press accounts that Kristina shares on her blog, LaBrie apparently failed to fill prescriptions for followup medication to treat Jeremy’s condition. By the time the failure was discovered, Jeremy’s cancer had returned – and in an untreatable form.

I urge people to read the blog entry. There is also the confusing issue of a custody battle between LaBrie and Jeremy’s father. Some hard questions need to be asked – Kristina reports that both parents had been subjected to complaints of abuse and neglect numerous times. Where were the authorities who are supposed to monitor families that are the subjects of complaints?

It’s not the first time that the Massachusetts DSS has come under scrutiny – they failed to exercise their duties in safeguarding Haleigh Poutre – until she was beaten into a coma. Then they sued to have life-support withdrawn. –Stephen Drake

Final Exit Network: Investigation Expanding and Members Expounding (or Obscuring)

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The apparent suicide by Phyllis Hixson, in Athens County OH, is being investigated for possible involvement by members of the Final Exit Network (FEN).

The group claims that no one from FEN was present. But that doesn’t matter to Hixson’s younger sister, Jerri Rosson:

She blames the Final Exit Network for providing the plans and support, if not an in-person presence, behind her sister’s death.

Rosson said her sister never mentioned a death wish. She hadn’t heard of the Final Exit Network until investigators arrived at her sister’s home.

“I think it’s wrong, totally wrong. We all have a purpose in life, and it’s not up to us to decide when that purpose is fulfilled,” Rosson said yesterday while tending to funeral arrangements.

“She had a lot of good to give. She was not done. I feel she was rushed into it.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Larry Egbert is out on the road, doing his best to distort and misrepresent the mission of FEN:

“What would you do if your dog is dying and riddled with cancer? You’d take him to the veterinarian and the vet would put him down,” said Dr. Larry Egbert “What would you do if your father was dying of the same kind of horrible cancer? Nothing much, so your father gets to suffer and your dog doesn’t?”

Egbert has been charged in connection to his alleged role in the death of John Celmer, a man who was cancer-free at the time of his death, but distressed about his physical appearance.

Apparently, Egbert thinks it’s best to downplay the wide-open criteria that FEN used to brag about.

Obviously, Egbert and his FEN pals don’t have much faith in their position – or they wouldn’t feel compelled to lie about it. –Stephen Drake