I wrote some time ago about the awful and tragic case of Kerrie Woolterton. Woolterton was badly mentally disturbed, so much so, that she now only wanted to commit suicide but repeatedly tried to by swallowing anti freeze. The last time she tried, she called an ambulance and then pinned a note on her chest that she didn’t want treatment. Astonishingly, the physicians were so paralyzed by terminal non judgmentalism, they just stood by for a day and watched her die.
Now a coroner’s inquest has said they were right to do so. This means that saving the lives of suicide victims will not be attempted if they just put a note on their clothes saying they want no care. What a profound abandonment!
Some in the UK have noticed and are reacting with proper horror and disgust. From a commentary in the Telegraph “Kerrie Wooltorton’s Death Shows How We Have Lost Respect For Life:”
This is where we have arrived in our attitude to suicide in Britain today. A disturbed young woman, with all the promise of adult life before her, is left to kill herself, because under her current circumstances she wants to...
There is a public attitude that is now pro-suicide, fostered by the euthanasia lobbyists Dignity in Dying, Lord Falconer’s frustrated assisted-suicide amendments in the House of Lords the commercialisation of self-destruction by Swiss clinic Dignitas. Want to kill yourself? Of course you do. You have that right. Go ahead.
These people have successfully usurped what generations of humankind have known as the sanctity of life. That doesn’t have to be a religious belief. It is simply the intuition that we hold and value human life over the taking of it. And the pro-death lobbyists and Lords, evidently, have now infected the intuitive responses of our medical emergency services.
Right on. A lot of people have much for which to answer morally in this plunge off a vertical moral cliff, which is happening here too, just in slower motion.
And remember, this is the country that has now decriminalized the assisted suicides of the terminally ill and people with disabilities who are helped into death by family or friends. I will have a piece coming out on that travesty shortly.
You have a decision to make: double or nothing.
For this week only, a generous supporter has offered to fully match all new and increased donations to First Things up to $60,000.
In other words, your gift of $50 unlocks $100 for First Things, your gift of $100 unlocks $200, and so on, up to a total of $120,000. But if you don’t give, nothing.
So what will it be, dear reader: double, or nothing?
Make your year-end gift go twice as far for First Things by giving now.
