SHALL WE USE THE LETHAL CHAMBER?

Dunstan Times, Issue 3143, 13 November 1922, Page 7

SHALL WE USE THE LETHAL CHAMBER?

(By the Rev. G. A. Studdert-Keimedy.) The proposal of Mr A. E. Cook, ;i Labor member of the Bath City Council, that doctors should bo allowed to put an end to patients who are suffering from incurable diseases, is dealt with in the following article by the "padre" who became so immensely popular during the war. The writer won 'the M.C. during his war service, and the nickname of "Woodbine Willie" was conferred on him by the "Tommies" in the trenches. The modern traffic in wild ideas seems to know no limits; it has even undermined the foundations of St. Paul's, and the Dean, in desperation, has taken to Eugenics, which is the extremist form of Bolshevism. The Bolshevist slays without scruple the people he does not like. The Eugenist would not even allow them to be born. And now Mr A. E. Cook, in the kindness aiiid goodness of his heart, comes along with the proposal to put people in extreme pain out of their misery. What the Euge»ist and the "Cookist" —to coin another ist —do not perceive is thai literally the whole fabric of civilisation, such as it is. depends upon the doctrine' of the sanctity of the individual human Hie. Anything which aims at that aims at the very foundations. Already the power of the doctors, and its corresponding responsibility, is awful to contemplate. If they are to be burdened with this extra responsibility, who would be a doctor And who would want to live with the possibility of such a tyranny and its abuses hanging over their heads like a threat? Any one who has visited the sick, and stood by the deathbed of those whose departure from this life is attended with prolonged agony, must have enormous sympathy with the spirit of pity, tenderness, and humanivy which lies behind Mr Cook's proposal : but often in this life shrinking fioin the duty of being cruel that we may bo kind only lands us into the error of being kind io be ultimately cruel. Any measure whatever which strikes' a blow at the peculiar sanctity of human life will give vise- to cruelty leather than to kindness in the long run. It is doubtful whether tlie pains of the body are really the moist terrible pains; and. if you are going to aill'ow people to put an end to their physical misery by death, there seems to be no logical reason why you should stop short there, and no human reason either. ] have known people in mental agony and torment which) to a pitiful heart , would have, justified their being put out. of their misery. I am with you. Mr Cook, in my heart, but my head says, "No." It will not do —you cannot put upon any man. or body- of men, a responsibility such as that without opening up the possibility of the most dreadful kinds of tyranny. We must do some long, long thinking before we pub our signatures to this or any measure which puts a man on a level with the beasts.