Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Economist’s assisted dying film is as crazy as a jihadi video

Because, it says, of its ‘liberal values and respect for human dignity’, the Economist has put out a film about Emily, a 24-year-old Belgian woman, who wants assisted dying. She is physically healthy, and comes, the film assures us, from a happy family. She has suffered from severe depression since childhood, however. By her own account, her self-made video (two years ago), in which she says ‘I don’t want to live a lie’ and ‘It keeps feeling empty whatever I do’, made her feel empowered. It inspired her to seek death at the hands of doctors. Belgium is one of two countries in the world which permits assisted dying for psychiatric reasons. The Economist film shows Emily in her orderly and pleasant flat in Bruges, revealing the scars and bandages on her arms where she has self-harmed, sitting under a clock which says ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. We see her being interviewed by the three doctors who will approve her decision to be killed. They explain how the first needle will put her to sleep, the second kill her. ‘It’s going to be emotional for us too,’ says one of them smugly. Emily decides to be killed, and sets the date. She sits by a canal with her best friends, planning her funeral. At one point, one of the group says, ‘If it feels right for you, that’s the main thing.’

Is it really the main thing? Lots of dreadful things can feel right to people at one time or another which may not be, especially if the balance of one’s mind is disturbed as, in Emily’s case, it declaredly is. One of the purposes of human society is to temper what might feel right to an unhappy individual with a strong sense that there is a possible future and the existence of others to consider.

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