Euthanasia's Growing Acceptance

This is a very scary trend throughout the world. We've seen it time and time again. People deciding when a person's worth no longer warrants living. I can sympathize with people who do not want to see their loved ones suffer. It is difficult. I believe that most, if not all people, can get pain treatment for their loved ones in the final days of their lives. Killing them is just not the answer.

LONDON -- Euthanasia is legal in only a few countries, but even where it is prohibited judges are increasingly reluctant to punish offenders. A recent example is the case of English father, Andrew Wragg.
Wragg's 10-year-old son, Jacob, suffered from the degenerative disease of Hunter's syndrome and had multiple disabilities. On July 24, 2004, his father smothered Jacob, afterward calling the police to tell them he had killed his son, the BBC reported Dec. 12.
During the trial, the prosecution argued that Wragg's act was a "selfish killing," carried out because he could no longer cope with looking after the boy. But the judge, Justice Anne Rafferty, said the case was "exceptional" and that there was nothing to be gained by sending the father to jail. Wragg was given a suspended jail sentence.
A similar case occurred three months earlier. On Sept. 3 the Times reported that Donald Mawditt admitted helping to kill his wife by giving her antidepressants, then suffocating her. His wife, Maureen, suffered from hemochromatosis, a condition that causes too much iron in the blood, damaging the liver and pancreas and causing heart failure. She was told she had only a 50% chance of living longer than two years.
During proceedings, evidence showed that the couple had made a pact when they married to end each other's life if they fell terminally ill. Judge Thomas Crowther decided that the case was "exceptional" and spared him a prison term. Mawditt received a three-year conditional discharge.
Another 2005 case was that of Brian Blackburn, who pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his wife, Margaret. The Guardian newspaper last Jan. 15 reported that Blackburn killed his wife, then unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide.
His wife had an advanced case of stomach cancer and would have died within weeks. Judge Richard Hawkins said that the case was one of "exceptional circumstances," and Blackburn received a suspended jail sentence.
Australian judges are also sparing relatives from jail in similar cases. A case in point is that of Catherine Anne Pryor, in the state of Tasmania.
Pryor was found guilty of the attempted murder of her mother and pleaded guilty to helping her father commit suicide, the local Mercury newspaper reported Dec. 20. In March 2003 she gave her mother an injection of insulin, and about eight months later injected her father with insulin and pethidine and put a plastic bag over his head until he stopped breathing.
The court was told that both parents were in poor health. Anne Grant was 77 and in the early stages of dementia and Peter Grant was 79 and suffering from terminal cancer. Pryor received two suspended jail sentences. Justice Michael Hill declared "he did not think the community would want her to go to jail," the article reported.


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