There was always a danger that the trial of Bernadette Scully for the manslaughter of her severely disabled daughter, Emily, would lead to calls for euthanasia and so it has happened. The fact that Bernadette was acquitted of the charge has made no difference to this.
Writing in The Sunday Independent yesterday, Donal Lynch, usually a thoughtful writer, asked: “Does any child deserve to live a life screaming in pain, convulsing with constant fits (which in Emily’s case, one nurse testified, would likely get much worse through puberty)? And is not the larger problem that the law, as it stands, seems to believe in life at all costs, even when those costs are constant, unbearable, humiliating pain and the destruction of the spirit. If any of us had to face a situation like this, would we want those who love us the most to take their courage in both hands and give us back our dignity?”
Note the euphemism, “give us back our dignity”. What this means is, “kill us”. Emily would have had to be involuntarily euthanasised seeing as she was incapable of giving consent to a lethal injection, or any other means of administering death.
We had the same kind of thing from euthanasia campaigner, Tom Curran of Exit International, writing in The Irish Examiner. (Curran was euphemistically described by the Examiner as a “carers’ advocate”).
Curran described the undoubted toll it takes when you have to care for someone who is severely disabled. He called for more State support. But Curran also wants us to legalise assisted suicide. In fact, his organisation wants anyone who can make a “rational” choice to have the right to kill themselves with assistance. The person making the ‘rational’ choice might be completely healthy but simply have become ‘tired of life’. Exit International still supports the ‘right’ of that person to commit suicide.
Curran himself has said he had helped dozens of people to devise a suicide plan for themselves, regardless of what their families think.
What we are becoming is a society that tells disabled people; ‘you are a burden to yourself and your family, we understand if you want to end it all’.
It is with this in mind that groups like ‘Care not Killing’ has been set up in the UK, or Hope Ireland here. Some of the members of these groups are themselves disabled. They know what the push for assisted suicide is saying to disabled people. They know the deadly message that is being directed at them and they don’t like it. They know we are normalising suicide for the disabled and for anyone else considered a burden.
