The phenomenon of suicide promotion on prime-time TV and social media is a development that clouds reasoned debate, covering it in a shroud of emotionalism. It lends itself easily to the use of euphemisms. The recent story of Brittany Maynard is but one in a macabre procession of devotees recruited to the cause. Not, I suspect, with the intention to bring meaning to their personal circumstances, but to draw sympathy from the pathos for a cause that, without the emotional rendering and deliberately nebulous language, is not as popular or as compelling as its supporters would have us believe.Australian journalist and author, Nick Cater, in his recent book, The Lucky Culture, provides an example of the kind of thinking that the pro-euthanasia, pro-assisted suicide movement wants us to take at face value. In discussing what he calls 'the emasculation of sovereign power' he tells this little anecdote about the European Court of Human Rights: Continue reading