Now this is a particularly interesting illustration of the discrimination that the assisted suicide movement would imbed into the law. A man was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to five years in jail for assisting the suicide of his girlfriend. From the story:
A man who gave a loaded gun to his suicidal friend to “snap her out of it” and then watched in shock as she killed herself was sentenced to up to five years in prison for his role in her death. The man, Christopher Burda, 46, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the November 2005 suicide of Nancy Choquette of Stamford, Vt.Here’s the thing: If the woman had been suicidal due to cancer or ALS, Burda would never have been jailed, or if had been, there would have been an outcry not to punish him for his act of “compassion.” Indeed, we have seen outright murders go essentially unpunished if the “motive” was to put a sick or disabled person out of their misery.
The dead girl was otherwise healthy, so Burda is feeling the weight of the law. But even this might be changing as there is now advocacy for a right to assisted suicide for the mentally ill—which was recently made a constitutional right in Switzerland. For those with eyes to see—please see!
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