In general, I would not choose to spotlight the ideas of people who seem unable to see much beyond the tips of their own noses, but one of the most telling features of the public ‘conversation’ about assisted dying, and mercy at the end of life, is the inability of some of people to deal with complex ideas. Call it the ‘black and white’ syndrome. Everything is either black or white for them; there are no shades of grey, no nuances, no tragic dilemmas or uncertainties, no moral ambiguity, no room, therefore, for compassion for individuals caught in inescapable moral conflict.
Strangely, these people are very often Christians, even though Jesus, in the story of the woman caught in adultery, is said to have asked the ferocious onlookers to consider their own lives before they condemned her. (Most biblical scholars agree that this story is a later addition to the Jesus myth, but let’s imagine that it is a true account of things.) Had they never done wrong themselves, knowing it to be wrong? Had they never been in a situation where the options were unclear, where whatever they did seemed wrong, yet where the choice was forced? Let that man throw the first stone.
In an article commenting on Robert Latimer’s having been granted full parole, Paul Tuns rails against the decision to let Latimer go home at last. He was not surprised at the decision, he tells us, sarcastically. It just ticks him off. And then this:
It sends a terrible signal to society that the life of a person with a disability is less valuable than the life of an able-bodied person. That is sick and perverse and dehumanizing.
Recall that this is a man whom all the judges who tried him called decent, honest, a salt of the earth sort of man, a man who clearly loved his disabled daughter Tracy. Recall too that Tracy — despite the mischaracterisation of her as a happy child, going to school like other children — was severely disabled and in pain, and that her father only took the course he did, out of desperation, when it seemed to him that Tracy’s suffering was going to get worse and there seemed little chance that the child’s quality of life would ever improve. And all that Paul Tuns can say is that, “For me, more than anything else, this case is about betrayal.” Just that simple. No one who loves another person, it seems, could think that death could be a mercy for that person. Has Paul Tuns never stood at the side of a loved one’s bed as they lay dying, and, after the terrible struggle was over, said that it was a blessing, and that no one would wish them back to suffer so?
The contemptible Alex Schadenburg, of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, whose apparent goal in life is to intrude himself unbidden into the lives of others, a man who can still work himself up into a pitch of indignation over the decision to let the brain-dead Terry Schaivo die, claims that
Robert Latimer has been convicted twice and found unanimously guilty of second degree murder by all 24 jurors. All Rober[t] Latimer needed was 1 sympathetic juror to have been acquitted of murder.
This is sheer misrepresentation. Schadenburg must know that in practically every case the jurors were sympathetic to his plight, and found him guilty with great reluctance. Even the Supreme Court was sympathetic, but felt bound to condemn the act if not the man. The jury in the retrial which began on 27 October 1997, as Bauslaugh says in his book, “clearly had enormous sympathy for Latimer.” (55) There is even reason to believe that the judge misled them as to the jury’s right to recommend leniency in sentencing.
According to Bauslaugh, when the mandatory 10 year sentence was handed down, some jurors were upset:
A number of them put their hands to their mouths in dismay, some gasped, a couple of them cried. It is entirely possible that, had they known about the ten-year minimum, they might have returned a verdict of not guilty. (57)
It is the malice of small minds that retells the story in such a way as to turn Robert Latimer into an odious criminal, who murdered his daughter in cold blood for no more reason than his own convenience. Schadenburg, with bullying hyperbole, calls it a “heinous crime,” and claims that Latimer was treated more lightly than he deserved.
In his article fulminating against the decision to grant Robert Latimer full parole, Paul Tuns puts his finger on the real reason why Latimer acted as he did:
Robert Latimer claims that he only wanted to end Tracy’s suffering, although when you listen to his words carefully you understand the suffering he wanted to end was his own. I have no doubt that he was under great pressure and that he had difficulty coping with the stress of caring for a disabled child. [my emphasis]
Tuns didn’t listen carefully enough. Latimer never spoke about his own suffering. But it is true that Latimer was suffering, and he suffered so much because someone he loved was suffering. A few years ago, Tracy would have died in infancy. But now, through modern medical technology, it is possible to keep people alive, and to prolong their suffering, sometimes for years, even though it is not clear why we should do so. It was only when it seemed to Robert and his wife Laura that Tracy’s suffering would go on, seemingly forever, that Robert Latimer did what he felt he had to do.
He might have been wrong, but which one amongst us is willing to say that this was not a man caught in a desperate and tragic dilemma, who acted, as he saw it (and still sees it) for the best? Latimer is even faulted time and again because he shows no remorse. But he believes it was the right thing to do! Yes, he could have put Tracy in a home, but that would not have brought her suffering to an end. In fact, her suffering would have gone on, but now amongst strangers, without the care and the love that her mother and father could provide. And so it was, faced with this cruel dilemma, that Robert Latimer chose to act as he did.
Yes, Latimer was suffering, but he suffered because Tracy was suffering, and it looked as though her suffering would continue, and that she would be taken into even darker rooms than she had been in before. The failure by people like Schadenburg and Tuns to understand the depth of Robert Latimer’s human compassion, his courage and resolution even in the midst of all that suffering, is truly frightening. It shows how much damage religious absolutism can do, and how cruel and malicious it makes the narrowed minds of its devotees.
From all the sources I’ve read, Tracy was in terrible pain and all the medical folk could offer her was tylenol because more effective medication would have “harmed” her. She was facing another gruesome procedure that would perforce have to be done without anesthesia.
I don’t know about you, but I hope I would have died myself rather than let a child (or anyone else I loved) go through with what Tracy was enduring.
Latimer clearly felt the same and decided that he would end her suffering at whatever the cost to himself. I have nothing but admiration for his bravery and pity for his immense loss.
Pingback: Tweets that mention The Malice of Small Minds « Choice in Dying -- Topsy.com
Beautifully written, Eric, and exactly right.
As a community nurse with many palliative patients, my spouse has many remarkable and deeply moving experiences. But the one consistent negative has been the interference and intrusiveness of small minds that attempt to dictate one set of right and proper behaviours for all while those closest to this unyielding process have these blunt expectations added to their already profound and complicated burdens.
The importance of compassion really does tend to get moved off the burner entirely by those who assume their paper thin morality is up to the task of sufficiently wrapping all pointy edge end of life issues into a nice and tidy and simplistic package so easily consumed by those who do not know any better but who nevertheless are certain that their moral ‘wisdom’ has already received some divine pre-approval.
For anyone who has been there, done that, gone through the emotional wringer of trying to do the right thing led by compassion, all the while having to deal with god’s apparent disapproval through his never-ending sanctimonious mouthpiece minions all to eager to see themselves as the ‘moral’ defenders of the helpless, is an eye-opening experience of just how counterproductive religious belief is to the exercise of compassion itself, how inadequate it is finding and supporting solutions to real world suffering. In the Latimer’s case, these religious expectations guaranteed not only Tracy’s continued suffering if left alive but the creation of a situation that kept suffering alive for all those who loved her… whether action was taken or not. And beneath it all lies the truth: that religious interference is not aimed at compassion, not intended to find and support meaningful solutions, not willing to lend moral acceptance for those who must try to make the least worst decision – the most compassionate decision for the welfare of all – but to further suffering of others and revel in their misfortune all in the name of god.
tildeb. Couldn’t agree more. It’s good to have this from the point of view of someone at the sharp end of the stick, ie, from someone like your spouse who encounters suffering on a daily basis. Thanks.
I can barely imagine how much it must have hurt Robert Latimer to watch his daughter die. Alex Schadenfreude has no understanding or compassion for suffering people other than to enjoy their misery. If it weren’t so uncharitable, I would wish Mr. Schadenfreude very long and very painful path to death. In an effort to be charitable however, I wish him a painless, speedy death…soon. We don’t need anymore people such as him to impose their narrow minded, religious, viewpoint on the rest of us. There are too many of that type to contend with now.
Yes, Bigjohn, this is precisely what is so horrible about all the criticisms of Robert Latimer by the religious brigade. It is quite evident from everything that was said throughout the trials that Latimer was devastated by what he felt he had to do, but he was not prepared to see his little girl continue to be abused by a medical system that apparently never thought at all in terms of the quality of her life. She had already lived much longer than was expected, and still she was going to have to endure surgery, after which pain control would be a serious problem since anything besides Tylenol interfered with the anti-spasticity drugs that she was being given. So, here was a child, with the mentality of a three or four month old, threatened with further surgery, and a the probability of greatly increased suffering, and, from the Latimers’ point of view, disfigurement. Robert Latimer’s judgement was that she had suffered enough, and he resolved to end it, at great cost, as it turned out, to himself. But he never once changed his mind about the rightness of what he did. That kind of resolution and commitment doesn’t come from nowhere. He did it, as I see it, out of love, and it is nothing short of a crime that he has been treated in the way that he has been. And all the religious brigade can do is heap insult after insult on this caring man. It’s enough to make one weep.