SICK DOOM DRAMAS

Evening Star, Issue 22229, 6 January 1936, Page 9

SICK DOOM DRAMAS

DEMAND FOR MERCY KILLING VIEWS OF SPECIALISTS. . Recent- sensational disclosures by an English country doctor of how on five occasions he has taken life to end the agonies of his patients have stirred the country. This is the striking comment of a West End consultant of wide experience:— “ No matter how regrettable from many aspects disclosures of this kind may be, the fact remains that in all countries, actuated by the highest humanitarian motives, medical men do at times take what amounts to a sacred judgment into their own power. Such actions are jealously guarded, even within the ranks of the profession. Even the nursing staff would not bo generally aware when extreme necessity had prompted such action.” The doctor who revealed that he had ended the life of a baby doomed to imbecility, and by an overdose of morphia the agonies of patients sufferings from an incurable disease, declared: “I have broken the law and I am prepared to face any tribunal; my justification for what I have done is that humanity knows no law.” Here are other views expressed:— Dr C. Killick Millard, secretary of the newly-formed . Voluntary Euthanasia (Easy Death)„Legislation Society: As to whether or not ’this particular doctor acted rightly or wrongly cannot be answered wthout possession of the full facts. But I can say this: Other doctors have told mo very similar stores, and it all points to the urgent necessity for an alteration in the law. Lord Listowel (one of the founders of the society): While it is impossible to encourage action contrary to the law, the new society has been formed to get the law altered so that it will ho possible to shorten the agony of anyone suffering- from an incurable disease.

We do not think it right that one doctor should have the responsibility of such a decision; there should be at least two to decide whether it is impossible for medicine Ito alleviate agony and suffering, but at the same time one cannot withhold admiration from a man who for humanity’s sake risked his career and laid himself open to the severest penalties so that a sufferer's agonies should be ended.