March 19, 2024

Devoted mothers in English “mercy killings”

Internet comes in handy

Mrs Francis InglisAssisted suicide is never long out of the headlines in England, it
seems. This week they featured two devoted mothers who killed their
disabled children. In the first case, 57-year-old Frances Inglis was
sentenced to life imprisonment for giving her brain-damaged 22-year-old
son Thomas a lethal dose of heroin in November 2008. She will have to
serve a minimum sentence of 9 years.

In 2007 Thomas was injured in
a brawl and taken unwillingly to a hospital by ambulance. He jumped out
while it was moving and ended up with severe brain damage. She believed
that since then he had been living a life of “horror, pain and
tragedy” and she was determined to bring it to an end. In September
2007 she injected her son with heroin, but he was resuscitated. She
denied her involvement after she was arrested. While on bail for
attempted murder, she obtained 10 packets of heroin for £200, and
injected him again.

Mrs Inglish told the court that she had no choice: “The definition of murder is to take someone’s
life with malice in your
heart. I did it with love in my heart for Tom, so I don’t see it as
murder. I knew what I was doing was against the law.” However,
prosecuting lawyer Miranda Moore said in her closing statement: “It is
a tragic case but it is not a defence to murder to end someone’s life
to put them out of their misery.”

In a similar case which is still being tried, 55-year-old Kay Gilderdale gave her 31-year-old daughter sleeping pills, anti-depresssants and morphine to help her to commit suicide. Her daughter Lynn had been mute and bed-ridden since she was 14 after contracting myalgic
encephalomyelitis.

The two stories have common features. Both women
were separated from their husbands, with whom they were still on good terms, but they made the decision alone after working themselves into a frenzy of compassion. And
both relied upon the internet for finding information about their
children’s condition and how to kill them. Mrs Gilderdale was reading about euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke as her daughter was dying. — London Telegraph, Jan 20; BBC, Jan 20

 

Michael Cook
euthanasia
mercy killing