SWISS SUICIDE CLINIC KILLING DEPRESSED DEATH TOURISTS
"I
find joy in the sufferings I endure for you. In my
own flesh I fill up what is lacking in the sufferings
of Christ for the sake of His Body, the Church" (Col.
1:24).
The West rejects
suffering as lacking dignity, purpose, and meaning.
In times past a good or happy death meant a person
had an opportunity to conduct a thorough examination
of conscience and repent of all sin. The Catholic
Church has always acknowledged the powerful
redemptive nature of uniting one's suffering with
Christ's Cross. But death with dignity has been
diabolically twisted to rob one of the chance at
reflection, and the grace of a possible death bed
conversion. Now the ideal death is speedy, with
minimum hassle on family or friends, and is totally
pain-free due to mind altering drugs. A people that
reject sacrifice and suffering as meaningless and
something to escape from have lost the ability to
love and thus the purpose of life.
The Swiss have gone so far as to set up suicide
clinics for those with "incurable pain" called among
other names "Dignitas" and "Exit". Dignitas has
recently come under fire for killing foreigners who
travel to Switzerland to die and are merely
depressed.
Prosecutors are calling for tougher regulations on
Switzerland's assisted suicide clinics after
uncovering evidence that some of the foreign clients
they help to die are simply depressed rather than
suffering incurable pain.
The clinics, which attract hundreds of foreigners,
including Britons, every year, have been accused of
failing to carry out proper investigations into
whether patients meet the requirements of
Switzerland's right-to-die laws.
In
some cases, foreign clients are being given drugs to
commit suicide within hours of their
arrival, which critics say
leaves doctors and psychologists unable to conduct a
detailed assessment or to provide appropriate
counselling.
Swiss laws allow doctors to provide "passive suicide
assistance" to people who are terminally ill or in
great suffering, with patients given a cocktail of
drugs that they must administer themselves.
A handful of clinics provide the service, with two,
Dignitas and Exit International, also offering it to
foreigners, who make up a large proportion of the 300
assisted suicides that take place each year.
A Dignitas member who desires suicide must apply in
writing, proving illness and pain, with a doctor's
proof and prognosis. There is concern, however, that
foreign patients may find it easier than Swiss
clients to provide fake medical and psychiatric
records.
Questions over the screening of foreign patients
first surfaced when it emerged that a 67-year-old
German woman who committed suicide with help from
Dignitas had presented the clinic with faked papers
saying that she was dying of cirrhosis of the liver.
It turned out that she had been suffering from
alcoholism and depression. Dr Daniel Hell, of the
Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical
Ethics, a government regulatory body, said: "We
suspect there could have been cases where people who
suffered from a temporary depression have been helped
to their deaths."
"Not only is suicide a sin, it is THE sin. It
is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to
take interest in existence; the refusal to take the
oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man,
kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills
all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out
the world." G.K. Chesterton,
Orthodoxy.
Above excerpts taken from
the
TELEGRAPH.
