Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

There's a fine line between assisted suicide and murder

ME mother 'helped daughter die' with morphine syringes

A mother gives her debilitated daughter two syringes of morphine, who injects herself intravenously in a bid to end her own life. But it doesn't work, and then the mother injects more morphine, gives her daughter crushed pills, and finally injects air into her in an attempt to bring about her death. At that point I have to agree that it ceased being an assisted suicide and turned into murder. Yes, she may have been trying to fulfill her daughter's wishes. But 30 hours of continual actions designed to kill someone after they were no longer able to direct the effort really is at the very least manslaughter, and credibly murder. I'm interested in how this British case turns out.

ME, by the way, is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, the disease that robbed the daughter of so much. In Britain the term refers to what we in America would call Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She'd lived with a severe case from age 14 to 31. Although I do support a person's right to end their own suffering, and sympathise with her situation, I think the mother went too far, although she was trying to follow her daughter's wishes, but it is not our intentions but are actions that matter, and the fact of the matter is that her daughter is dead not by her own hand, but by her mother's.

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