Zippy Catholic's declaration that if he were king, there are some behaviors that would rate beheading, with the perpetrators' headless bodies to be found floating in his moat, is now famous in its own small way here at WWWtW.
I hereby propose the following persons as candidates for the moat in the happy event that Zippy is king: Wye Hale-Rowe and Frank Langsner.
Via Secondhand Smoke (Wesley J. Smith's blog), comes the story: Hale-Rowe and Langsner are "guides" working for an openly advertising Final Exit Network. The organization specifically advertises that it is the only group in America that will help you kill yourself even if you are not terminally ill. Isn't that nice? Recently in Phoenix, these two helpful folk gave step-by-step directions, including a dry run, coaching, and stand-by at the time of the event itself, to a mentally disturbed woman for her suicide. When I say that Jana Van Voorhis was "mentally disturbed," I don't only mean because she wanted to commit suicide, either. Details are in the story. Not that it makes a decisive moral difference. It's also wrong for people who are fully compos mentis to commit suicide. More wrong, for the person himself. I point out Jana's mental problems both because there is something peculiarly obscene about inducing and helping a mentally confused person to commit suicide and also to emphasize the hypocrisy of the advocates of "rational suicide." This isn't about rationality. It's about death.
The two guides gave Jana details on what substance to purchase (helium) and how to get tanks, on the right kind of airtight hood to buy to concentrate the helium and where to get the hood, on how to put the hood on. They gave her tips at the dry run, the morning of her death, when it was discovered that her hair got in the way of the hood. (They suggested pulling it back for the real thing.) Hale-Rowe says Jana "responded to very, very short imperative statements that I had for her." Wonder what those were? They assured her that the process would be painless. On the night itself, they looked on while she did for herself everything they'd discussed. They apparently did not touch the apparatus while she was committing suicide, but when she was dead, they took away the helium tank and other evidence.
The story says that state officials aren't sure whether they will prosecute them under an Arizona law against giving a person "aid" in suicide. No one has ever been prosecuted under it before, and they are afraid that "aid" will be regarded as too vague. If all of this is not "aid," I don't know what is.
Meanwhile, if I were queen, I'd just go with the moat.
Comments (6)
Since we're all a bunch of gnostic Catholic, hot-house-reasoning, abstraction-intoxicated absolute pacifists, whatever could this "mote" idea mean?
Posted by Paul J Cella | August 27, 2007 7:56 AM
Oh, y'know, Paul, it means "take the heads out of your moat before you tell your brother to take the bodies out of his."
Posted by Lydia | August 27, 2007 8:24 AM
I don't know if I like where this discussion be headed.
Posted by Zippy | August 27, 2007 9:54 AM
Further proof that the modern Albigensians are alive and kicking.
Posted by Brandon Field | August 27, 2007 9:55 AM
Why do they bother with all the apparatus - hood and helium and such? Why didn't they just point her to the nearest busy street and tell her to walk into traffic?
Posted by William Luse | August 28, 2007 2:23 AM
I guess they'd have trouble convincing her that that would be peaceful and painless. Then she might not do it!
Posted by Lydia | August 28, 2007 9:36 AM