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CNA Staff, Apr… […]

London, England, Sep 19, 2019 / 06:39 pm (CNA).- Family members of an 80-year-old woman in England are advocating for legalized assisted suicide after the woman was found not guilty by a U.K. court in an apparent “mercy killing” of her husband.

Mavis Eccleston, 80, was accused of killing her husband Dennis, 81, with a lethal dose of prescription medicine.

Prosecutors claimed that Mavis had done so without Dennis’ knowledge or permission.

But, according to the BBC, Mavis told jurors at the Stafford Crown Court that she and her husband had both intended to take their lives with the medication, and that they had decided to do so after Dennis’ diagnosis of terminal cancer.

The couple was found in their apartment by family members on Feb. 19, 2018, after they had taken the drugs. The couple was rushed to the hospital and given an antidote to the medication. Mavis survived; Dennis did not.

After the hearing, Joy Munns, a daughter of Dennis and Mavis, called for the legalization of assisted suicide “so that dying people aren’t forced to suffer, make plans in secret or ask loved ones to risk prosecution by helping them,” the BBC reported.

Both euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are illegal under U.K. law. According to the U.K.’s National Health Service, euthanasia could be prosecuted as murder or manslaughter and carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, while physician-assisted suicide carries with it a maximum punishment of 14 years imprisonment.

In 2015 the U.K. parliament rejected a bill that would have legalized assisted suicide for patients with a terminal diagnosis, by a vote of 330 to 118.

The U.K.’s Suicide Act 1961 was challenged in High Court in 2017 by a terminally ill man, Noel Conway, who wanted a doctor to be able to prescribe him a lethal dose. His case was dismissed.

Some disability groups in the U.K. and throughout the world have argued against legalized physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, saying that such legislation would put vulnerable populations such as the elderly, physically disabled and mentally ill at risk for coercion.

The Catholic Church teaches that assisted suicide and euthanasia are a violation of the dignity of all human life, and therefore morally impermissible.

“Those whose lives are diminished or weakened deserve special respect. Sick or handicapped persons should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible. Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church states.

“Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded,” it adds.

The Catechism similarly states that suicide or the cooperation in suicide is morally unacceptable, though it notes that: “We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.”

In the recent U.K. hearing, Mavis told jurors that her husband wanted to end his life after receiving a terminal diagnosis of bowel cancer. He had stopped treatment except for pain management medication, and he had reportedly talked about going to Switzerland to take advantage of legal assisted suicide in the country.

The couple decided to end their lives together with a lethal dose of medication, and reportedly wrote a note to their family explaining their decision.

According to the BBC, Mavis said she handed the medicine to her husband before taking it herself, and that Dennis “knew full well” what he was doing as he gave himself the medicine.

Mavis said after she took the medicine herself, she kissed her husband and covered him before lying down, and remembers nothing else until she woke up in the hospital.

One of the couple’s children said outside of the courthouse that while they were “grateful and relieved” for the court’s ruling of not guilty, they said that if there “had been an assisted dying law here in the UK our dad would have been able to have the choice to end his suffering, with medical support, and with his loved ones around him.”

The case is similar to a 2017 case in which an English chemist was cleared after administering lethal drugs to his 85-year-old father, who had reportedly wanted to die. A judge at the time ruled that the chemist’s actions “were acts of pure compassion and mercy.”
 

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CNA Staff, Apr 24, 2020 / 12:17 pm (CNA).- The president of the Scottish bishops’ conference wrote Friday to the Scottish health secretary, saying the permission for women to self-administer both stages of a medical abortion at home during coronavirus is born of ideology rather than true concern for women.

“I believe it is profoundly depressing that in the midst of this unprecedented global pandemic when the resources of almost every government on earth are being diverted towards the preservation of life, especially the lives of the weak and vulnerable, the Scottish Government continues to act to end the lives of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society, the unborn,” Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen wrote April 24 to Jeane Freeman, Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport and a member of the Scottish National Party.

“It is more than disheartening that the Scottish Government should see fit to promote ‘abortion at home’ as though this were a trivial matter equivalent to taking any other medication at home. A position like this appears to be more a matter of ideology than of genuine and dispassionate concern for women’s wellbeing,” the bishop, a Benedictine, wrote.

The Scottish government has lifted restrictions on at-home medical abortions during coronavirus.

A medical abortion is a two-step process that involves the ingestion of mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone blocks the effects of the progesterone hormone, inducing a miscarriage. Misoprostol is taken up to two days later, and induces labor.

Women in Scotland have been able to self-administer misoprostol in their homes since 2018. However, until recently, they had to take mifepristone at a clinic.

The medications will be delivered by mail.

Because of coronavirus-related lockdowns, the Scottish government has allowed at-home self-administration of mifepristone as well, following a phone or video consultation with a doctor.

A similar permission was made in England last month, and Sinn Féin’s leader in Northern Ireland has pressed for a similar change in that region.

Bishop Gilbert said he found the Scottish government’s decision “deeply troubling.”

He said that while mifepristone and misoprostol “not only end the life of an unborn child,” they “are also a risk to the health of its mother,” noting that even in the best of circumstances – administration at a clinic with several hours of clinical observation – there is “a real risk of severe bleeding and sepsis in a small number, and a need for further surgery in a larger proportion, depending on the stage of the pregnancy.”

The bishop added that “vulnerable women in unsatisfactory domestic circumstances are particularly at risk.”

He asked whether, under the new policy, women are “receiving information on all available options including details of organisations which can offer support to both the mother and the baby,” if enough time is given to counselling during the consultation, and “is it appropriate for drugs which end the life of a human being to be sent by post, trivialising what is an extremely serious and life-changing procedure”.

“Aside from the Scottish Bishops’ Conference’s absolute opposition to abortion, there are also serious practical concerns involved here,” he said. “The decision to allow women to take potent abortifacient  medications  in a largely unsupervised manner at home is not only fatal for the innocent human beings in the womb but also constitutes a real risk to women’s present and longer term health and wellbeing.”

Bishop Gilbert added that “it is of particular concern that there is no way of establishing that a woman is not being coerced into an abortion in the context of a poorly safeguarded online consultation.”

“In the current situation, there is already an increase in complaints about domestic abuse since the Coronavirus restrictions were put in place. It is far from clear how the Scottish Government proposes to set in place the prudent support procedures which permit all the relevant factors in each individual case privately and without coercion.”

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