You’re right, he would have had zero legal issues if she did that. But, not everyone is capable of doing that to themselves. People have a built-in instinct to survive.
Like times 100! I had to watch my grandpa die of starvation/dehydration at a hospice because of this. It’s so backwards.
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If this case is truly as presented, that his wife was suffering terribly, and they had no assistance to alleviate her pain, and she begged him to end her life, then that is heartbreaking, tragic. However, it is important to remember that in many abusive relationships, that the perpetrator can and will very skillfully present himself as the victim.
Are you suggesting the husband maliciously gave his wife terminal cancer?
I believe he is saying that no one appears to be able to corroborate the husband’s story that she asked to die.
We don’t know much about the situation, and from the outside, we can’t distinguish between between a mercy killing that was earnestly requested by a terminally ill partner, vs a guy who got sick of dealing with his terminally ill partner and decided to pack it in early without consent.
I prefer to believe the former, but my belief is not on the basis of anything at all.
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They might not have been able to afford hospice care, or had Medicare coverage, etc. Any number of reasons.
No. What I am suggesting that is that he may have shot her for his own reasons (ie murder) as opposed to her sincere desire to end her life due to her suffering, which he assisted. He may be using her cancer as his excuse for shooting her (ie an abusive, controlling intent v.s. a compassionate and loving intent).
Did the wife leave any documentation regarding her desire to end her life ? A note, letters, a recorded message ? Did she tell anyone besides her husband about her desire to die ? Is there any documentation from her physician about her condition in the months, weeks prior to her death ?
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We are just another animal on this planet. I agree with you and feel bad for the guy. His story is probably genuine. He’ll go to jail anyway, because…we’ll we just can’t go around shooting each other - no matter the reason.
She should’ve obtained some pills or something, told her family that she was gonna commit suicide, and did the deed herself.
I’ve still got my copy of Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying around, though I see it’s on its third edition. Still, it’s staying on my bookshelf.
Note- browsed for in an incognito window of my browser. How would authorities deal with finding those kinds things in your search history?
I considered OD’ing my wife on her painkillers when she was in this position and she told me she wanted to die. I wanted to help her, but I don’t think I could have done it even if I wasn’t scared by the risk to myself in the aftermath (and if I got arrested for murder, who would care for our daughter?). Ultimately it didn’t make that much of a difference. I would have saved her two days of suffering, as she died two days later.
She was 33 and in hospice care. I’m not sure why people think that’s relevant. Hospice doesn’t have magic drugs that end all pain and make you lucid to spend your last days happily reminiscing. The end was awful, hospice or no.
I definitely couldn’t have shot her, though. Never. She definitely couldn’t have shot herself. She couldn’t sit up or hold a pill.
The fact of the matter is that most people with opinions on this topic have never actually been there and have no idea what they’d do. One person mentioned having “presence of mind”. You probably won’t have that. You’re dying and high on the best prescription drugs they make, and you can’t go off of them because the pain is crippling. You can’t sign any legal documents.
Watching a loved one die is not like the movies.
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This isn’t screwed up.
This is a response to how screwed up things are.
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The reason many do not is religious. Basically all religions have rules that say if you kill yourself you’re not gonna end up in heaven or whatever other nonsense after-life theory fits their beliefs. That’s right kids: by the grace and compassion of god YOU MUST FUCKING SUFFER! Cause only an imaginary cloud-cowboy is capable of deciding your life or death*.
*This right is also reserved for redneck states in the case of criminals they don’t like, natch.
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In compassionate nations that allow euthanasia for terminal patients there are already laws in place to defend against such problems. They seem to make it work there… I don’t see why it would necessarily be a problem.
crosses fingers and hopes for a terrible accident to befall him and his family
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Hope you’re doing alright. That’s terribly sad, stay strong.
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Unfortunately we can not just assume this isn’t the case, which is what makes this so sad.
If it was her desire to end her suffering then this will make it even harder on him. However, we do have to remember that there have been people who have assumed the other person wants to die because they don’t want to deal with the other person’s illness. It’s just one of those things where unfortunately everything depends on the relationship itself.
Assuming this guy is telling the truth, my heart really does go out to him.
Personally, I would not ever ask some one else to kill me. I would do it myself if I truly felt it had to be done. I have seen a family member dying of cancer, begging daily just to die so that the pain will stop finally. Before my time my mother says her aunt died had terminal cancer that came back with a vengence, but that the doctor basically gave her a script for narcotics which she could refill as much as she wanted. She used that to OD. No one even called it a suicide. It was just kind of not talked about, and really it seems humane. Why should she have to suffer for a few months from utter pain through her bones and then die? Why not let her just die without having to hurt that bad? I’ve been lucky. I got a “good” cancer so I have not had to face that kind of mortal anguish.
Anyway… it’s really complicated, and I wish we could trust people not to murder each other. But we can’t, so we have to be aware of that too.
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I don’t understand how the hell a man can go to church every Sunday and take communion and then say with a straight face that ministering to the sick, the friendless, and the needy is not his problem.
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You gonna pay for it? Because this guy clearly couldn’t, and the American taxpayer would rather die than help the needy.
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The solution here is to change the laws to provide a legal avenue for a person to end their life in the case of terminal illness. That’s the problem: no legal alternative. Other countries do this without issue already.
In any case, if the dude is going with this story I’m guessing there’s gonna be a pretty undeniable paper trail of his late wife’s terminal illness.
Note- you’ll want to do some research on how to search for things undetected if that’s what you’re planning on doing, because using incognito-mode is pretty much the least you can do to obscure your search history. It merely deletes local copies of history and cache. Google still has a record of what you (based on your signed-in status) or someone with your IP searched for. Any of those pages you view that have facebook/twitter/social integration buttons may keep a record of that visit as well because incognito isn’t making you anonymised, it’s just cleaning out your computer post-fap so mother isn’t shocked when she accidentally discovers that you’ve been watching hardcore bondage on extremetube.
Look into TOR or Proxies if you really want to safeguard your browsing… a good, free, simple one that works on desktop and mobile (though NOT really secure: it’s a US company) is Tunnel Bear. Allows you to masquerade as if you’re in: US, UK, CA, DE or JP. 500mb auto & an extra 1 GB each month if you tweet them.
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