‘All social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering’
–William B. Smith, Verbal Engineering, 2002
Patricia Blewitt, the former Labour cabinet minister, now famous for more gaffs than a gap-toothed moose, has been spotted creeping around Westminster at a late hour by the ever vigilant Witch Doctor. Blewitt – who numbers amongst her affiliations patronage of the pro-terminator pressure-group Dignity in Dying – was busy urging her hon. Friends to gee-up and set about a Royal Commission on Assisted Dying; anything of a lesser stature simply would not do, she said. Her game – to sneak in a Royal Commission in the twilight hours of this Government, since she is due to stand down at the forthcoming election – was spotted by her hon. Pals and thrown out.
Be that as it may, Blewitt’s antics do remind us that the cause of killing is, so to speak, alive and well. The DPP’s recent guidelines on prosecuting assisted suicide, which amount to a licence to assist suicide, as long as the motive is not-for-profit compassion, have opened a back door to an illegal activity. And all the while, the death brigade continue to march, chanting slogans of dignity and choice.
The linguistic contortions the pro-death lobby are using to avoid calling a grave digging instrument a grave digging instrument are notable. They have sensed – correctly – there is something troubling in the words suicide and euthanasia, that does not help their cause; and so they cloak the reality in a layer of generalisms and euphemisms that hide what – if we do call a spade a spade – is intentional killing.
And so we have: Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society); Aid in Dying (formerly physician assisted suicide: which itself uses the physician’s cloak to sanitize suicide); Compassion & Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society); The Caring Friends program (the former Hemlock Society’s operational arm); Palliative sedation (total, terminal sedation à la Barton). And then of course, there is Dignitas.
Now, the question we might ask is this: if assisted suicide and euthanasia are all about compassion, choice and dignity, why do they need to be cloaked in these ‘caring’ words? Could it be that the death brigade, mindful of its unpalatability, are wary of signalling their true intent – which is of course legalised intentional killing – and so have indulged in a little verbal engineering, the better to pave the way for social engineering?
‘All social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering’ – so it’s a good job that Sue Stapely joined the Board of Trustees of the Media Standards Trust in 2007 just after she left the board of Dignity In Dying in 2006, then. So we can be certain the compassion & caring is all properly & fairly reported and that.
http://url.ie/5hyw
For the record (because I appreciate that anything I say is unlikely to change your mind on this issue):
http://dignityindying.blogspot.com/2009/11/terminology.html
Best wishes
James Harris
Head of Campaigns and Communications
Dignity in Dying
Colacube – Well spotted! An intertwinglement! I expect the WD will spot other intertwinglements soon enough. At the moment she seems to be tied up looking for crocodiles and alligators. No doubt she has a spell to keep them docile.
James – I agree terminology (which does get confused by some) is important; and there may even be one point on which we agree: a mentally competent individual of settled intent is legally and morally able to kill themselves. We may regret their choice (and the effects it may have on others), but in such circumstances the principle of autonomy trumps everything else.
Where things get sticky is when others are involved. There are now two (or more people) involved. Other influences come into play. Before long, the opportunity for the waters to get muddied rises greatly.
Correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that the (UK) Voluntary Euthanasia Society became Dignity in Dying in 2006. The earlier title seems plain enough. Dignity in Death, however, is euphemistic (and frankly not that helpful a distinguishing phrase – who doesn’t want dignity in dying?).
Reviewing your blog and dignityindying.org.uk, it now seems that both support what most people would call (physician) assisted suicide for the mentally competent terminally ill in terrible suffering, but neither supports euthanasia (you, indeed, are explicit about this). Perhaps, given their pre-2006 title, Dignity in Dying could be a bit more explicit (I searched the site for ‘euthanasia’ and although there were some hits, none were explicit statements as to whether DiD supports euthanasia or not).
I don’t buy your semantic argument that adjusting the time and mode of an imminent death is somehow not assisted suicide, and is instead assisted dying. The crux of the matter is intent (as indeed it is in both murder and the doctrine of double effect): in the case of suicide, if the intent is to kill oneself, then it is suicide, regardless of the imminence of death from other causes.
Semantic reworking of assisted suicide into assisted dying does appear to leave you open to a charge of verbal engineering, by way of blurring a pejorative term – suicide – into a more commonplace one – dying, that is socially more acceptable, and so easier to engineer into society.
Oh, colacube.
Meeooowwww!!!!!
Well spotted.