In the realm of contentious social issues, few topics evoke as much debate and emotion as Euthanasia. Many historians are of the belief that the euthanasia debate as we know it was triggered by the works of 19th century British scientists Charles Darwin, Francis Galton and Herbert Spencer, the former lending his name to the scientific ideology known as Social Darwinism.
In the annals of criminal history, few figures evoke as much horror and revulsion as Dr Harold Shipman, the British doctor who became the world’s most prolific serial killer. Dubbed the Angel of Death, Shipman’s heinous crimes shattered the trust between patients and physicians and sent shockwaves through the medical community.
It is a sad fact that the death of the fabled Greek philosopher Socrates has been hijacked by the Physician Assisted Dying (PAS) lobby. While Socrates did indeed take his own life, it was as a sentence imposed upon him for crimes, and not as an escape from ill-health.
For those of a certain age, we may remember sitting in a movie theater in the early Seventies with the strains of Grieg’s Peer Gynt echoing around us while on screen an aged and disillusioned Edward G. Robinson departed this life. Personally, I was seated in a small theater near Soho in London.