As ususal, horrible article. But I want to address some hilariously misleading claims in that article.
First of all, this paragraph here.
I understand the point about access for children and vulnerable teenagers. But vulnerable adults? How is a forum supposed to know who is vulnerable? What are parameters to find that out? And why should we restrict access to people who are vulnerable in the first place? This here is just a perfect demonstration again that people believe being vulnerable (aka mentally ill) robs you of mental capacity. And that's not just ableist, it's outright discriminatory and inacceptable. People who are "vulnerable"
do have a right to access content for adults, including content that discusses the right to die and how to exercise it peacefully. If you disagree with that, then you have a serious problem with individual autonomy and in that case I strongly urge you to hold in for a minute and to introspect where your regressive beliefs comes from.
Next.
That's not how it works. And that's also not how the law is applied in the UK, as far as I understand. Maybe someone who lives in the UK can provide some more information but I'm pretty sure that assisting suicide in the UK requires a physical compontent - for example, giving someone a physical item to commit suicide, knowing they will use it for suicide. That's why Kenneth Law has been charged with assisted suicide in Canada for example - because he gave people a physical product, under the assumption that he knew the purpose of said product. The police arrested him after he basically admitted to criminal intent to that undercover reporter where he acknowledged that people used his product to commit suicide and he was fully aware of it, even bragging about it if the newspaper didn't distort his messages and leave out important context.
But this forum contains speech. We don't send products to anyone and people who do, have been, are and will be sanctioned in this forum, so the claim that we to "permit material to be exchanged" is factually wrong. This is a rule violation and we crack down on it. This forum is all about information to empower and empancipate yourself. That's not illegal. Discussing peaceful ways to die is not illegal in the UK either. And if providing information on peaceful ways out was illegal, the PPH would be illegal to be distributed in the UK and Philip Nietzschke, the author of the book, would be considered a criminal and we would have been arrested, right? That's not the case - you can even buy the PPH on UK Amazon.[
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So something clearly doesn't add up here. There is a difference between speech (exchanging information and ressources) and action (sending someone a physical product for the purpose of suicide).
So again, this entire part here is inaccurate. And what I said
in this thread still stands today. Kenneth Law being arrested does not change these facts. What he did and what we do are two entirely different things and if he operated an account here and if we knew about it, he would have been banned.
But let's take a look at the enforcement of assisted suicide as a crime in the UK. Between 2009 and 2021 - that's 12 years - there have been 167 cases of alleged assisted suicides and only 25(!) were persued if I did the math correctly. The following numbers are from the website of the UK goverment.
Source
So again, in 12 years there have been barely any convictions of assisted suicide. It seems to me that the UK has a very strict interpretation of the law and merely talking about the peacefulness of SN doesn't seem to to meet the criteria for assisted suicide as a crime, otherwise I'm sure we would have seen way more convictions on that list, if every little remark, no matter how vague, was pursued as assisted suicide in the UK. And we still have yet to see a conviction of a SaSu member for using this forum and exchanging information. So here is what I think, this coroner is full of shit.
And finally.
The UK has a really strong obsession about "harmful content", huh. Even going so far to make an entire bill about "muh harmful content". First of all, what's harmful is highly subjective, okay. What does harmful content even mean? Let's take an example I've used in
my response to the BBC. The Prime Minister of the UK
said trans women aren't women and that's been uploaded to the internet. Now here is my question. Isn't that harmful content as it contributes to a hostile atmosphere for trans people and it's distressing for anyone who is trans? Or let's take this example. For some people abortion is murder. So if I spread abortion ressources online - for example as a response to the
Supreme Court decision to make abortion a state issue again - does that mean that's harmful content because some people will consider that encouragement to murder a potential human? There are many of people who think abortions are morally repulsive and information on how to get an abortion shouldn't be accessable. Like again, what's harmful and what isn't is highly subjective and to demand a forum that's not even located in the UK removes content you personally find harmful is absurd, okay. How can anyone take you seriously? I don't think sharing ressources on suicide and how to peacefully end your life is harmful. As I said, for many of us it's relief from pain, it's a final emancipating and empowering act, taking back control of our life. And I've been advocating for that my entire life. It's all a matter of perspective.
So yeah. Another article from the UK that contains a lot of misinformation and questionable narratives. Not exactly surprising. And I could do this all day, I've seen so much garbage that's been published in the last 2 years and it would be super easy to respond to every single one of them and debunk them to their face. I just don't have the time to do that. But if you really think I'm not equippied to respond to such lunacy, you're mistaken.
