Promoting Bad Decisions

Some people were arrested in Georgia for assisted suicide.  They were members of a group called the Final Exit Network.  One of their goals is "to serve people who are suffering intolerably from an irreversible condition which has become more than they can bear."  The group claims they do not assist in suicides.  Instead, their service involves instructing people on how to end their lives - which involves wearing a plastic hood that fills with helium.  Also, according to court documents, members of the group will hold your hands throughout the process to keep you from pulling the plastic hood off your head should you change your mind.  However, if you want services, you must be a member, and that costs $50.

The person Final Exit is charged with assisting in suicide is John Celmer, a man who had cancer, but that was not the reason he received services.  The irreversible condition that caused intolerable suffering for Mr. Celmer was his appearance after the numerous surgeries that cured him and left his body cancer free.  That's right, he no longer had cancer at the time of his death.  His issues were cosmetic, he was embarassed about his appearance, which should have been dealt with through psycological means.

That's the problem with providing assisted suicide services - people will tell you what you want to hear in order to get what they want.  Although the group does "encourage" you to seek a spiritual advisor and/or psycologist before going through with anything, it's an empty gesture when the client knows the option of suicide is there.  It would be like sending a drug addict to rehab and telling him that if he decides he doesn't like it, we'll be waiting with all the drugs he needs when he gets out.

Should assisted suicide ever be legalized [I'm looking at you Oregon, Washington, and Montana!], I don't even want to imagine the corruption that would take place when this service is provided by a profit hungry corporation.  Pharmaceutical companies already run ads to make you think you have whatever ailment they purport to cure.  I'd hate to see how assisted suicide companies would encourage an already depressed population to take advantage of their services.

Finally, for those of you who think suicide is a personal decision - you have no idea the damage it wreaks upon the living.  You have no idea how contagious it is.  This is not a decision that affects only the one who died.  This is not something people will get over eventually.  It leaves deep scars, and although the pain may get easier over time, it will never end.

I hope these people come to realize the intolerable suffering they inflict upon the survivors.  I hope they come to understand that this sufferable condition is just as irreversible as the services they provide.  Maybe then they can understand the hypocricy of their work.

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Comic Book Guy:  Pardon me, Santos, if that is your real name, Bart Simpson!