MERCY DEATH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 11 May 1939, Page 5

MERCY DEATH

CASE FOR EUTHANASIA ! NOTED PHYSICIAN’S STORY PATIENT WHO DID NOT WAKE LONDON, Ist May. The noted physician Sir James Pur-ves-Stewart, when defending voluntary euthanasia for the incurable, told of an experience with a patient who asked him to end her life. He said he was called to the bedside of an intimate friend—a woman dying of cancer—who pleaded: “You are a true friend. Give me something to make me sleep, so that I shall not wake ’

Sir James replied: “My very dear friend! You know how devoted I am to you and to those who love you. 1 cannot promise anything, but good-bye and God bless you.”

In telling the story at the annual meeting of the Voluntary Euthanasia Legislation Society, Sir James added that he could not reveal the action he had taken, but next day the sufferer “did not awaken ”

“Had l been charged with killing 1 might, under the existing law, have been convicted,” he said. "But my conscience and my fellow-citizens would have acquitted me. I am sure that many doctors would willingly take a

similar risk, which should be removed.” Sir James said he had no objection to the publication of the facts, and was quite prepared to take the risks involved.

Sir Arnold Wilson, M.P., said the silence of the bishops on euthanasia contrasted strangely -with their readiness to dogmatise on other issues. ‘The

same archbishop who is declaring that we must die for international law and order, insists that we mu t not die voluntarily,” he said.