Pandora’s coffin: ‘How to kill yourself’ workshop in Washington
Pandora’s coffin, once opened, has become predictably difficult to close. One year after the legalization of assisted suicide in Washington State, the normalization and expansion of the grim practice continues apace.
Opponents warned of the dangerous consequences of legalizing lethal drug overdoses for vulnerable ill people. We also warned that once one class of people has been targeted and made to feel as if they were a burden, another group would follow soon thereafter. One year later, these warnings have become an all-too-frightening reality. Not only are people with life-limiting illnesses in Washington made to feel as if they should ‘put themselves out of our misery’ via assisted suicide, but now it’s open season on the elderly as well. Phillip Nitschke is coming to town.
Washington State has now become a preferred destination for suicide-promoters and depressed seniors seeking to end their lives. Phillip Nitschke, the international suicide-promotion pariah, is sponsoring a ‘how to commit suicide’ workshop in Bellingham Washington on November 7th, 2009. His victims? Not only people with serious illnesses, but also, his ”core audience,” the “well elderly.”
The Australian ‘Dr Death’ has decided to target “the well elderly” with information about how to kill themselves via pills, helium and nitrogen, and other ghoulish forms of suicide, including plastic suicide bags and Mexican animal euthanasia drugs. Having been banned from selling his wares and promoting suicide in Australia and England, he is now turning his lethal gaze towards Washington State, where the recent legalization of assisted suicide gives him all the legal cover he needs to dispense ‘go kill yourself and here’s how’ advice to suicidal seniors and others. Even the public library in Vancouver BC refused to allow him to speak there, fearing that it would be “an indictable offense to counsel or aid or abet any person to commit suicide.”
Nitschke himself makes clear that the reason Washington state is such an ‘attractive’ location for his unsavory suicide-promoting practice, is it’s ‘liberal’ new assisted suicide law. No doubt he thinks, with good reason, that the glaringly absent safeguards missing from the so-called Death with Dignity Act will protect him (though not his victims) from prosecution.
Sadly, unless the state Attorney General’s office or Department of Health do a better job to protect our elders from the abuse of suicide and assisted suicide, the situation does not look good. Unless a vigorous public and governmental response occurs, Nitschke may well follow through on his plans to set up a permanent ’suicide office’ in Bellingham: that way he can be close to the Canadian border and expand his intended suicidal killing fields there too.
Fortunately, advocates for truly compassionate care plan to demonstrate their compassion in action by attending a “Protect the Elderly from Suicide/Assisted Suicide Demonstration” on November 7th, from 12 noon to 1:30pm in front of the Sustainable Living Center on 2309 Meridian Street, in Bellingham Washington. Additionally, many concerned citizens are exhorting the state Department of Health and the Attorney General’s office to do their job and protect seniors and ill people from suicide-promoting exploitation and the thinly veiled elder abuse. Unless they do, the rot in Pandora’s coffin will continue to spread, victimizing vulnerable people and cheapening life.
Please see the Demonstrate your opposition to assisted suicide section of this web site for further information.
Uncategorized | Eileen | 
October 28, 2009 2:44 pm
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