{"id":6558,"date":"2016-03-04T18:06:45","date_gmt":"2016-03-05T02:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=6558"},"modified":"2018-04-26T22:22:19","modified_gmt":"2018-04-27T05:22:19","slug":"lets-not-mince-words-i-killed-people-who-wanted-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=6558","title":{"rendered":"“Let’s not mince words: I killed people who wanted to die.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadian euthanasia activist posthumously discloses\u00a0serial murders<\/h2>\n

Sean Murphy*<\/a><\/p>\n

John Hofsess, a long-time assisted suicide\/euthanasia activist, committed suicide on 29 February, 2016 at a facility in Basel, Switzerland run by the Eternal Spirit Foundation.\u00a0 He was accompanied by Madeline Weld (an editor of Humanist Perspectives) <\/em>and four others, two of whom were filmmakers doing a documentary about his death.<\/p>\n

\""Let'sFour days later, Toronto Life published\u00a0Weld’s account <\/a>of his death and his posthumous confession<\/a> to having murdered at least four people between 1999 and 2001,\u00a0including noted\u00a0Canadian poet Al Purdy, and either murdered or assisted with the suicide of four others.\u00a0 He abandoned the practice because it became too risky after\u00a0police charged his accomplice, Evelyn Martens, with two counts of assisted suicide in 2002 with respect to the deaths of two women;\u00a0 Hofsess\u00a0states that he knew nothing them.\u00a0 Martens was acquitted in a jury trial\u00a0two years later and died in\u00a02011.<\/p>\n

Hofsess’\u00a0description of the method he employed in four of the cases (including Purdy’s) makes clear his clients did not kill themselves with his assistance; rather, he killed them with their consent.\u00a0 Consent to being killed\u00a0was not a defence to a charge of murder at the time; planned and deliberate homicide, even with consent,\u00a0was first degree murder.\u00a0 Consistent with this, he was advised by\u00a0two lawyers that he could expect to be charged with “crimes ranging from assisted suicide to first-degree murder” if he published his account.<\/p>\n

In Carter v. Canada<\/em>, the\u00a0Supreme Court of Canada decided to strike down the absolute prohibition of using consent as a defence to a charge of murder.\u00a0 Under the terms of the ruling, a physician who kills a patient in the circumstances defined by the Court can use the patient’s consent as a defence to\u00a0a charge of murder; in that case the killing is non-culpable homicide.\u00a0 It\u00a0remains first degree murder even under the terms of the Carter<\/em> ruling if the client or patient is killed by a layman like Hofsess, even if the\u00a0homicide\u00a0otherwise conforms to the requirements of the law.<\/p>\n

Hofsess\u00a0was forthright in describing what he did.<\/p>\n

“Let’s not mince words,” he wrote.\u00a0 “I killed people who wanted to die.”<\/p>\n

This is precisely what troubles health care workers who do not want to provide or to become accomplices to physician administered euthanasia or physician assisted suicide.\u00a0 They do not want to kill people or help them commit suicide, even people who want to die.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canadian euthanasia activist posthumously discloses\u00a0serial murders Sean Murphy* John Hofsess, a long-time assisted suicide\/euthanasia activist, committed suicide on 29 February, 2016 at a facility in Basel, Switzerland run by the Eternal Spirit Foundation.\u00a0 He was accompanied by Madeline Weld (an editor of Humanist Perspectives) and four others, two of whom were filmmakers doing a documentary … Continue reading ““Let’s not mince words: I killed people who wanted to die.””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5432,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,32,162,8,9],"tags":[101,2159,2158],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-6558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assisted-suicide","category-canada","category-euthanasia","category-legal-commentary","category-news","tag-carter-v-canada","tag-evelyn-martens","tag-john-hofsess"],"yoast_head":"\r\n"Let's not mince words: I killed people who wanted to die." - Protection of Conscience Project News<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=6558\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Let's not mince words: I killed people who wanted to die." - Protection of Conscience Project News\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Canadian euthanasia activist posthumously discloses\u00a0serial murders Sean Murphy* John Hofsess, a long-time assisted suicide\/euthanasia activist, committed suicide on 29 February, 2016 at a facility in Basel, Switzerland run by the Eternal Spirit Foundation.\u00a0 He was accompanied by Madeline Weld (an editor of Humanist Perspectives) and four others, two of whom were filmmakers doing a documentary … Continue reading "“Let’s not mince words: I killed people who wanted to die.”"\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=6558\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Protection of Conscience Project News\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ConscienceProject\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-05T02:06:45+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-04-27T05:22:19+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/consciencelaws.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/hofsess-john-1-300x185.jpg\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@consciencepro\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@consciencepro\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/news.consciencelaws.org\\\/?p=6558#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/news.consciencelaws.org\\\/?p=6558\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"\",\"@id\":\"\"},\"headline\":\"“Let’s not mince words: I killed people who wanted to die.”\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-05T02:06:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-04-27T05:22:19+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/news.consciencelaws.org\\\/?p=6558\"},\"wordCount\":428,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/news.consciencelaws.org\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/news.consciencelaws.org\\\/?p=6558#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/consciencelaws.org\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/03\\\/hofsess-john-1-300x185.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Carter v. 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