SIGHT TO DIE

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19880, 8 May 1936, Page 2

SIGHT TO DIE

CORONER’S STRONG CRITISM To claim the right to take one’s own life, or obtain “easy death,’’ even in the case of a person suffering from an incurable disease, was condemned by the Manchester coroner, Mr. R. Stuart Rodger, when he held two inquests in which there were suspicions of suicide. The coroner stated he was appalled to see the report of an inquest on a suicide to whom, apparently, “it was suggested by a northern cleTic that an act of self-destruction could be condoned with a clear mind if an incurable disease were alloged. “It is even more disconcerting,” the coroner proceeded, “to see other modern religious leaders supporting this ultra-pagan philosophy, which is the antithesis of New Testament teaching. Is the commandment to do no murder abrogated if applied to oneself? Pain in itself is no excuse, as modern drugs can alleviate it. In latter years there has been a marked increase in these tragedies, both in this and other countries, and an easy philosophy, such as advocated, will, I fear, tend £o further increase them, to the sorrow of all concerned. “Did any of the innumerable army of inartys take their own lives, though perhaps kept for weeks in slow torture with a certainty of death?” asked tho coroner. Th inquest to which the coroner referred was on William Henrv Osborne. aged 7(5, a retired Admiralty overseer, who wrote to the Plymouth coroner claiming “the absolute right Enclosed with the letter was a cuting containing a statement by (’anon Peter Green. rector of F-t. Philip’s Salford, that if he were suffering from an incurable disease he “would take a painless poison a cup of tea ar.d die with a clear mind. ’ ’