By Dave Andrusko
This is definitely going to be a catch-up weekend. A reader just forwarded a tweet they’d seen that referenced a PBS Frontline program which had (alas) already run earlier this week. If you go to the PBS webpage it’s headlined, “In ‘The Suicide Plan,’ Frontline Explores Hidden World of Assisted Suicide.”
The subject, more specifically, is “the surprisingly coordinated underground world of assisted suicide in the United States.” Given PBS’s previous highly sympathetic programs on assisted suicide, you can pretty much guess where it’s headed.
The film’s co-producer, director and writer, Miri Navasky, is interviewed and she rambles on essentially making the point that we’ve heard all the pro and con stuff before.
“So we wanted to find a new way into the issue and not just rehash the same old debate. We decided to focus on what people are doing who want help dying but who don’t live in states where physician-assisted suicide is legal.
“We were interested in examining more controversial and, perhaps, more explicit forms of assistance. Also, of course, we both have friends or family who have struggled with these issues in one way or another; just about everyone does, so the universality of the issue alone made it worth looking into. Then, lastly, we’re also both very interested in exploring ‘hidden worlds’ and certainly the underground world of assisted suicide qualifies.”
Apparently, the focus is on the “Final Exit Network.” As we and others have discussed in this space, this is an ultra-controversial organization, constantly in legal hotwater. Here’s Wesley Smith’s take:
The Final Exit Network “counsels” suicidal people on how to kill themselves with helium and a plastic bag. They also “attend” the suicides and apparently “clean up” afterwards so that investigators are unaware of the helium element in the deaths.
This has led to indictments for the suicide of a mentally ill woman in Phoenix, with two guilty felony pleas and an acquittal of one of FEN’s Big Heliums because he wasn’t there and because the judge did not let the jury learn the victim was mentally ill. Also, indictments in Georgia that were thrown out when the ridiculously worded law against assisted suicide was rightly declared unconstitutional, a problem since remedied.
In addition, Smith notes (quoting from a Minnesota newspaper) “a local grand jury in Dakota County, Minnesota has indicted and four of its members on 17 counts of assisting a suicide and interfering with a death scene.”
Frontline, obviously fascinated, tells us “We asked six experts to watch the film and wrestle with these questions. Here is what they had to say” [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/social-issues/suicide-plan/the-shadow-side-of-assisted-suicide]. I recognize some of the names and on Monday I will offer some further thoughts on the Frontline program itself and the “six experts.”
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