INCURABLE DISEASES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19451, 28 March 1933, Page 8

INCURABLE DISEASES

HAS THE SUFFERER THE RIGF’* TO DIE? LONDON, March 14. Has a sufferer from an incurable and agonising disease the right to suicide? The problem is revived by the first public declaration that such a suicide is justified, made by the South Monmouthshire coroner at the inquest on a motor driver afflicted with cancer. The coroner said: “This poor man suffered the tortures of hell. He knew he was under sentence of death, o why shouldn t he have the right to say he would suffer no more? I think he did perfectly right.” Sir John Bland Sutton, a former president of the Royal College of Surgeons, agrees. He says he respects a man who, doomed to a painful, lingering death, has the courage to end his life. “Why should he be expected to continue living in agony?” asks Sir John. “Juries and coroners try to spare the family, cloaking the brave act in the guise of insanity. Surely it would be better to honour a man’s courage. The danger is that many who think they have got cancer may commit suicide in sheer fright.”