Their mother wants to be able to humanely euthanize them so
that they aren’t trapped in their own bodies any longer. She believes they are suffering each and
every day with no hope of a cure or even relief. The law permits her to suspend feeding so
that they die slowly of starvation and dehydration. She doesn’t want to put them through that, so
she is fighting to change the law.
As a parent of a special needs child, I’m afraid of a legal
precedent allowing parents to euthanize their special needs children. It’s a slippery slope. I would be worried that the government might
be able to take the decision out of my hands.
They already do in medical cases where parents refuse treatment for
their children.
On the other hand, my heart is full of compassion for her
and her dilemma. If I truly believed my
children were suffering intently each and every day and that death was the only
way to relieve that suffering, I would hope that I would have the option of
helping them without having to make them suffer more. Robert Lattimore had to make this decision
over a decade ago and he spent ten years in prison for it.
They had a different special needs mother on to argue the
other side of the case and I was offended when she accused the woman of wanting
to kill her children because they were inconvenient and because of the medical
expense. It irritated me because she
never once mentioned expense or difficulty.
The only thing she talked about was her children’s experience and her
belief that they were suffering. People
who resort to hyperbole and distortions to win arguments irritate me. We should be discussing the implications of
changing the law and the needs of this case in particular.
Personally, I think if a compassionate euthanasia law is put
in place, it should be something that you have to argue in front of a
court. You should need to convince an
impartial judge and possibly a panel of doctors that the situation can only
deteriorate and that the patient in question is suffering. Then you get an exemption. There aren’t many of these cases so checking
into the facts of each one shouldn’t be too big a burden on the court
system. And it doesn’t give blanket
permission which can be twisted after the fact.
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