The daughters of a cancer patient, who wants to fly to Switzerland to be made dead, started a group funding effort to pay for their mother’s assisted suicide.
When that got shut down, people apparently sent cash to help pay for the death. From the Carmarthen Journal story:
A WEST Wales mum has had a flood of cash from strangers to help send her to a Swiss suicide clinic to end her life after police forced her daughters to cancel a fundraising party.
Jackie Baker, aged 59, is “amazed” that a fund has topped £3,000 in the past few days to pay for her £8,000 trip to the euthanasia clinic.
An online fund in her name has had £3,435 from 83 people who support her aim. She has now registered with Dignitas to plan her last trip, despite the £15-a-head ladies only night in Llanelli being scrapped.
I never judge anyone who is suicidal. None of us know what could drive us into that darkness.
But how we respond? That’s a different story. Here are a few of my thoughts:
- People who pay to help someone become dead have that death on their own shoulders. They are morally accountable.
- Such pro-suicide efforts hurt others struggling with difficult health conditions such as cancer. I know. I hear from them.
- The tenor of the story is pro-suicide, par for the course these days in the media.
- The newspaper story is utterly devoid of information about the many opportunities for symptom control and palliative care that help cancer patients tremendously.
- That’s an abdication of community responsibility which makes the story pro-suicide.
How about group funding to ensure Baker receives the best of palliative and hospice care? Would that even make the papers?
Maybe one day Dignitas will offer suicide scholarships. Ugh!