Monday , September 29, 2003

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. "” The St. Petersburg city council passed a law Monday designed to scuttle a rock group's plans to feature an onstage suicide.

The hard-rock band Hell on Earth had said that a suicide by a terminally ill person would take place during a concert Saturday to raise awareness of right-to-die issues.

In response, the city council met Monday morning to unanimously approve an emergency ordinance making it illegal to conduct a suicide for commercial or entertainment purposes, and to host, promote and sell tickets for such an event.

"While I still think it's a publicity stunt, we still couldn't sit idly by and let somebody lose their life," council member Bill Foster said.

Tampa-based Hell of Earth, known for such outrageous onstage stunts as chocolate syrup wrestling and grinding up live rats in a blender, created the furor by announcing the suicide would happen Saturday at the Palace Theater in downtown St. Petersburg.

But the theater's owner, David Hundley, promptly canceled the band's show, and another venue also turned away the event.

Band leader Billy Tourtelot has vowed that the concert and suicide will still take place at an undisclosed location in the city, broadcast live on the band's Web site.

"This show is far more than a typical Hell On Earth performance," Tourtelot said in an e-mail last week. "This is about standing up for what you believe in, and I am a strong supporter of physician-assisted suicide."

A message left for Tourtelot was not immediately returned Monday.

A Florida law already makes assisting in a suicide manslaughter, a second-degree felony.

Hell on Earth is playing clubs in support of its independently produced album, "All Things Disturbingly Sassy."

Nox

ew. rats in a blender? Poor rats! Thats not cool.

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I win again!!

I see you have not heeded YV's warning. You are such a punny boy (Err... possibly girl... um... entity), Nox, but maybe a bit too subtle. I didn't notice that one for a whole ten seconds.

I agree about the rats though. Ick.

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You have to give up.

I saw St Petersburg and thought these guys were Russian. Surely you need a cold climate for this kind of posturing?

...but then you noticed that the government had acted quickly to pass legislation without being bribed, and you knew it couldn't be Russia... but Florida? I'm surprised the city council was able to read the ads...

Honestly, though, I'm all in favor of people being allowed to go in dignity at their time of choosing, but on stage during a concert? Is that going in dignity? Methinks they do more harm than good to the suicide rights movement, confirming that it's just a publicity stunt for themselves.

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"When the fight gets too big, they don't bother with coffins." -- the coffin-maker, YOJIMBO

quote:

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Originally posted by Splitcoil:
Honestly, though, I'm all in favor of people being allowed to go in dignity at their time of choosing, but on stage during a concert? Is that going in dignity? Methinks they do more harm than good to the suicide rights movement, confirming that it's just a publicity stunt for themselves.

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"When the fight gets too big, they don't bother with coffins." -- the coffin-maker, YOJIMBO

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I'm in favor of allowing a terminally ill person to choose his fate, but I am not sure a thousand screaming fans are ready to watch someone kill himself. Taking one's own life is an intensely private affair and shouldn't be done in front of a thousand strangers. That's not dignity in my opinion, it's a spectacle.

Nox

Thats just plain sick. Both the public suicide and the rats in a blender. I wonder what kind of point they are trying to make by putting a live animal in a blender and killing it like that. They need to spend a few nights in jail thinking about how wise it is to hurt poor defenseless animals. Things like that just piss me off.

To go out in front of a crowd of people?

Can't say I'd like to see that... unless said person was eaten alive by said rats.

Now THAT would be entertainment.

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Fighting causes injury

No, to truly satisfy me it would have to be the entire band eaten alive by rats after failing to get them into the blenders.

Serve 'em right, it would.

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You have to give up.

Or a little ratty accomplice unplugging the blender... band member reaches in to see what's wrong... WHIIRRRRRRRRRR---AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH!

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"When the fight gets too big, they don't bother with coffins." -- the coffin-maker, YOJIMBO

So nobody besides myself has read "Weeping Walls" by Paul di Filippo?

I'm pro-life, anyway, so likely I wouldn't agree with this event either, were it anything more than merely fodder for a horrible pun, as Splitcoil intimates.

No, no assisted suicide is ever a suicide, when you come right down to it - cf. the movie "Goodbye, my Love", and the book upon which it is based. Not to mention a veritable s#%tload of facts and articles and research and links I could point you towards that demonstrates exactly what the dark underside of "euthanasia" is, and how it's far more common than the Hemlock Societies and the Right-to-Die movement would like to have you believe. (Witness all the old people they managed to con into signing "advance directives" back in the Kevorkian heyday.)

What none of these elderly people realized as they were signing these orders and ticking the "nothing by mouth" box was that meant that, were they ever to be hospitalized for something like pneumonia, for instance, they might end up actually being STARVED TO DEATH by hospital staff, not dying from the infection itself.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that there is something fundamentally f%@ked about being hospitalized for a relatively severe, but treatable, infection, and dying instead of malnutrition as you are given no food nor water until your body gives out. I've heard of the whole "Final Exit" scenario being popular these days (hence my di Filippo reference above), but I've never heard of the "death by starvation" method of euthanasia being popular. Not that it would necessarily be widely-publicized, after all, they reserve that particular "act of mercy" for infants who don't meet genetic standards, or are "low hope" cases.

Er, yeah, I can cite you chapter and verse as to why I believe the way that I do. But I've likely gone on far too long as it is. My apologies, I certainly don't want to bring this thread down to the same level the religion/political discussions have a tendency to degrade to rather quickly. I probably should keep my stupid yap shut, but I've been known not to do that before....

If you disagree with me, I can certainly live with that, don't worry.

Yelena

I disagree with you, Yelena, but it's not a topic I'll rant about. I believe everybody should have the right to end their life, unless they are demonstrably insane and they can be treated. People living in societies with no noticeable "safety net" (for example, the USA) should especially have this right. The state won't take care of you if you don't take care of yourself, yet they'll stop you from ending your life? Doesn't seem to make sense.

The reason I won't rant on the topic is because I've lost loved ones to suicide and it's just too depressing to rant about. The illegal, try to figure out a way to off yourself without putting anyone in danger or tipping off The Man type of suicide. I sure wish they hadn't wanted to kill themselves. But since they did, I sure wish they'd had a more dignified exit. Sneaking around, doing it yourself is not the most honest or fitting way to end a life. If a person has the right to dye his hair orange and dance a jig on the sidewalk, then he certainly has the right to choose when his life ends. I don't see how there's a compelling public interest in trying (UNSUCCESSFULLY) to stop him.

My $.02 (That's US$, so I guess it's probably about .03 Canadian.)

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"When the fight gets too big, they don't bother with coffins." -- the coffin-maker, YOJIMBO

No hint of a rant there, SC, just an honest and reasoned response. Thank you! I know, this is a touchy subject, and one I likely should not have brought up, but I fear I may have been remiss in saying I was "pro-life" without explaining myself. Let's just say that while I have leanings towards the value of life over the value of choice, I'm not ready to go out and shoot doctors or bomb abortion clinics and the like.

My take on those who do wish, above all else, a final exit by their own hands? Oh, sure, if you actively want to go, and you have no outstanding preexisting condition that can be treated to alleviate your desire to die, then that should be your right, yes. My problem with the pro-death groups is how they fundamentally promote death as a first option, when it should truly be an option of last resort, after all other treatments have been tried, and failed.

Another thing that troubles me about the right-to-die societies is how close they come (and how connected they've been in the past) to groups which believe they can prejudge the quality of life of others...others who might not want to die just as easily as those groups would hope.

Well, that, and the quality of life judgements that stuff like the Kevorkian kills promulgates in society as a whole, which some of the more vocal right-to-die groups quite actively champion.

For example, right-to-die activists telling a disability activist at a euthanasia conference, en masse, that he was better off dead. Needless to say, the gentleman in question disagreed with them. Vociferously. But his was one voice against many, and often the most vulnerable targets of involuntary euthanasia, not "assisted suicide" have no voices of their own to speak with. Which is why I believe it is best to err on the side of caution, and treat those who have expressed the wish to die, first and foremost, humanely, and with an eye towards alleviating pain. Not by putting them down like animals without first questioning "Why?" Because that paves the way for a thoroughly slippery slope, one that society is already partway down the hill on, what with the shocking and heavily-encouraged lack of heroic measures taken to save "low hope" infants these days.

(Just watch those "birth stories" shows that air on a regular basis; you'll see more than you'll ever want to of parents allowing their newborn children to die without medical treatment because they are "low hope" cases or might need drastic medical intervention of some sort to survive.)

Of course, like Splitcoil, I come with my own emotional attachments to the issues at hand. Which is why it's a push-button issue, right?

Thanks for your response, Splitcoil, and I'm sorry for what happened to you and your family and friends (and their families). I used to live out West, I know the suicide rates there are higher (at least for Canada - not sure about the PacNorthwest) then they are anywhere else, and having lived out there, I also know why. My condolences.

Yelena

Oh, it's not a problem for you to bring it up. It's not THAT depressing. Hell, I've been known to make suicide jokes. Tasteless and morbid, but I figure I've earned the right. (Too bad there's not an emoticon for 'rueful smile'.)

I see your point, and it's certainly not a clear-cut issue. People who run around trying to convince people to kill themselves should indeed be introduced to the business end of a firearm themselves. But people do all kinds of horribly tasteless things with their personal liberty. One person's tastelessness should not keep us from infringing on another's most basic freedoms.

But you're right; the entire controversy is draped in nastiness. I think that de-stigmatizing suicide would be even more helpful than legalizing it. If a person could go to their friends and family with their wish to die, then it's pretty certain that their confidants would do their best to help them treat their problems... and if that was not possible, then maybe they could arrange a somewhat less squalid end for them. But that's a culture issue, not a legal issue.

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"When the fight gets too big, they don't bother with coffins." -- the coffin-maker, YOJIMBO