Dr. Peter Singer is a physician and a bioethicist at the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto. (He is not the Peter Singer, bioethicist at Princeton University, but probably shares a few ideas with the man.) He is well educated and, one assumes, intelligent. Yet this week he penned a column in the National Post advocating that Parliament should amend the criminal code to include the crime of “compassionate homicide” to accommodate murderers who kill people out of love. People like Robert Latimer, who killed his severely handicapped daughter Tracy. Think about the phrase “compassionate homicide.” Does it seem like a contradiction? How about “consensual rape?” Or “affectionate assault?” Dr. Singer wrote the column in response to the death of Ian Carmichael, an 11-year-old boy whose body was found two weeks ago in a London, Ontario hotel room where he was staying with his father, David. Mr. Carmichael, a well-known Ontario sports consultant who worked in amateur athletics and promoted physical fitness among young people, has been charged with first degree murder. Police have not released the cause of death, but they have denied early reports that the boy was asphyxiated. Family and friends have hinted that Ian had serious health problems and was developmentally delayed. There has been no official confirmation of the details but media reports have said he had a brain tumour that caused seizures and that he suffered a brain aneurysm. At his funeral, the pastor said Ian was “no longer suffering.” In his column, Dr. Singer acknowledged that “parents who kill their children to alleviate suffering have committed a crime…that deserves to be punished.” He objects, however, that a first degree or even second degree murder charge, which have mandatory prison sentences of 25 and 10 years respectively, are too tough. He never specifies a punishment but seems to believe that a light or no jail sentence would be appropriate. Under current definitions of first or second degree murder, a judge or jury cannot find the perpetrator guilty without the long jail sentence. So, says Dr. Singer, we need this new crime of “compassionate homicide” so that we can find people guilty of something, but impose a punishment that effectively says they were justified in what they did. Unfortunately, Dr. Singer is so representative of his profession and many people in our society. Their utilitarian approach to life and their own subjective feelings determine what matters. In the case of Dr. Singer, however, his professional credentials give him a great deal of influence in the medical community and among the public. I know nothing of the Carmichael story. Those facts will emerge later. However, I know a little about the Tracy Latimer story and like many of you, more than ever came out in newspaper accounts. Indeed, Dr. Singer seems ignorant of some of the details himself. He says in his column that Robert Latimer immediately confessed his crime to police. In fact, Mr. Latimer took his dead daughter out of the truck, carried her to her room and told police she had died in bed. At his trial, Mr. Latimer claimed that Tracy lived in constant pain and that he couldn’t stand to see her suffer anymore. By contrast, a daily journal that passed from home to school with Tracy was full of reports of Tracy having a good day at school and being happy. He had refused to allow doctors to insert a feeding tube to assist Tracy’s nourishment. It took hours each day to feed her, a process that the feeding tube would have corrected. And shortly before he killed her, Robert Latimer had turned down a permanent residential placement for Tracy at a facility where she had spent the summer before her death. We are told Tracy’s death was a compassionate killing. Compassion for whom? There is no evidence that Tracy wanted to die. There is overwhelming evidence that her father could not cope with demands of taking care of Tracy and refused the help from outside agencies when it was offered. The tragedy of the Latimer case, and others like it, is that the victim, Tracy, was ignored. Because she was disabled, uncommunicative in the usual way, and unable to participate in “normal activities”, she became a non-person. Most people assumed that because she was in pain, her quality of life was not worth saving. “She would have wanted to die,” they think, and her father helped her. If we are so sure that Tracy wanted to die, why did so many disabled Canadians and their support groups oppose a light sentence for Mr. Latimer? Why were they outraged when a judge sentenced him to one year in jail (later overturned)? Why did they express fear that a light sentence would be a declaration of open season on the disabled? Aren’t they all dissatisfied with their quality of life? They are well aware that many Canadians share the Dr. Singer view that theirs are lesser lives. It is not explicitly stated, however. Sure, we make a big deal about ramps and accessible washrooms and handicapped parking stalls but when it comes right down to it, Canadians sent Robert Latimer over $100,000 to help pay his legal bills and polls found that a majority thought his actions were justified. I suspect that most disabled persons would gladly reject our compassion, if it includes homicide. I think respect and dignity for their lives and persons, no matter what their disabilities, would be more welcome and a whole lot safer for them.
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