Dignitas founder views assisted suicide as a universal human right

A BBC news article from April 2, 2009 interviewed Ludwid Minelli the founder of Dignitas clinic, the assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland, who stated that he intends to clarify the law in Switzerland concerning assisting the suicide of a healty Canadian woman who intends to die with her husband.

Minelli is reported to have defended to the BBC news the assisted suicide deaths of psychiatric patients also.

Link to the original article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7977017.stm

Minelli is stated to the BBC news:

suicide was a "marvellous possibility" and he wants the assisted suicide law clarified for the healthy partners of dying people.

He said: "I have a totally different attitude to suicide. I say suicide is a marvellous marvellous possibility given to a human being."

Further to that he reported of a test case that he intents to bring before the Swiss courts, he stated:

"Suicide is a very good possibility to escape a situation which you can't alter."

"It is not a condition to have a terminal illness. Terminal illness is a British obsession.

"We are not a clinic. As a human rights lawyer I am opposed to the idea of paternalism. We do not make decisions for other people."

"There is a couple living in Canada, the husband is ill, his partner is not ill but she told us here in my living room that 'if my husband goes, I would go at the same time with him'.

"We will now probably go to the courts in order to clear this question."

The Dignitas Clinic has spurned much controversy over the past several years in the advocacy of suicide and there encouragement of suicide tourists who travel to the Dignitas Clinic for death.

The article states that:

Dignitas is known in Britain for having helped more than 100 people to kill themselves.

The majority were terminally ill, but there have been more controversial cases such as psychiatric patients and couples, even when one was less ill than the other.

A recent controversy has erupted concerning the charge by a former Dignitas employee Soraya Wernli. Wernli has suggested that Minelli has not only been unscrupulous about who he assists suicides, but also for his elaborate fees and how he will assist suicides.

Previous blog entry about the Soraya Wernli's claims about Ludwig Minelli and the Dignitas Clinic:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2009/02/cashing-in-on-despair.html

The fact is that Minelli appears to be more extreme than the rest of the euthanasia lobby because he is unwilling to achieve the goals of the euthanasia lobby by incremental steps.

Consider the recent charges against four members of the final exit network and the recent interview with one of their leaders, it is clear that the Final Exit Network is not concerned whether people who they assist to commit suicide are not depressed or mentally competent. Link to a past blog commentary:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2009/03/final-exit-network-proves-that-they-are.html

When one considers that Ted Goodwin the past president of the Final Exit Network allegedly admitted that they do not only hold the hand of the suicide victim, but they actually hold down the hands of the suicide victim to prevent the victim from removing the turkey bag that is filled with helium.

Link to blog comment on the Final Exit Network:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2009/03/ted-goodwin-defends-deaths-of-people.html

It is a known fact that people will often remove the "Exit Bag" during the deathing process, because of the 'will to live' and the natural fear that is associated with dying from suffocation.

Further to that, consider the antics of Philip Nitschke, Australia's Dr Death. Nitschke sells suicide devices and provides suicide manuals to people over the internet. He also promotes suicide tourists travelling to Mexico to purchase lethal drugs that are used by veterinarians for the euthanasia of large animals.

Link to a recent blog commentary about Philip Nitschke:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2009/03/australias-dr-death-philip-nitschke-is.html

In case you take seriously the attempts to distance themselves from the rest of the euthanasia lobby by the UK euthanasia lobby group - Dying in Dignity, or Compassion & Choices in the United States, just remember that:
1. all of these groups are members of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies,
2. Ted Goodwin is the Vice-President of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies,
3. Philip Nitschke was a respected speaker at the World Federation of Right to Die Societies conference in Toronto - September 2006 where he had a display table that he used to demonstrate the effectiveness of his suicide devices.
4. Derek Humphrey is the founder of the Final Exit Network and the former Hemlock Society. The Hemlock Society formed into Compassion & Choices.
5. The only reason Dying in Dignity in the UK and Compassion & Choices in the United States are distancing themselves from Nitschke, Minelli and the Final Exit Network is that their strategy is based on an incremental approach to achieving the same radical ends, but they recognize that our culture is not ready yet.

Finally, last year when a film biography of the Rev George Exoo was released in the UK that proved that Exoo was assisting the suicides of people with mental illness and clinically depressed, the question of where Exoo found his victims directly connected him to the mainstream of the euthanasia lobby.

Link to the blog comments about Exoo:
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2008/05/euthanasia-advocates-fail-to-distance.html

Jon Ronson, the filmographer, interviewed Derek Humphrey, the long-time leader of the mainstream euthanasia lobby in the United States. Humphrey admitted that when he received a call from a persistent person, who appeared depressed or mentally incompetent, that he would refer them to Exoo.

I still wonder why Exoo was not arrested and Humphrey investigated.

Remember, the Euthanasia lobby is not about providing assisted suicide to terminally ill people who are suffering uncontrollable pain. The strategy of the euthanasia lobby is to promote limits that appear reasonable by the general public in order to build a further acceptance of a universal right to die for everyone.

A nirvana of peaceful pills, exit bags and death purveyors.

God help us all.