In an effort to “quietly end his life” and alleviate his misery, a mother has confessed to giving her terminal seven-year-old son a heavy amount of morphine.
Hamish Cooper was in a lot of pain with stage 4 cancer, according to Antonya Cooper, a resident of Abingdon, Oxfordshire. She spoke with him just before he died in 1981.
Now that she is facing a grave diagnosis, she revealed the information in an effort to amend the laws around assisted suicide.
The police said that they were investigating her case. The acts of euthanasia and assisted suicide are both illegal in England. The former refers to the intentional killing of a human being, while the latter involves helping another person to terminate their own life.
Hamish was afflicted with neuroblastoma, an extremely uncommon disease that primarily affects children and teenagers. His initial prognosis was he would live three months. He was diagnosed when he was just five.
After nearly a year and a half of therapy, his life was prolonged, but according to his mother, he was left in terrible pain.
She said on Hamish’s last night, she asked him if he would like her to remove the pain. He said yes.
She administered a hefty dose of morphine, which effectively ended his life.
The 77-year-old was questioned whether she believed her son knew she meant that she would end his life.
She said she felt confident that he knew what she meant.
Forty years after her son’s death, Hamish’s mother is now coming to terms with the fact that her sickness is fatal.
She stated that her health problems and his pain strengthened her perspective on assisted suicide.
Critics argue that if the laws were to be changed, it would “put pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives” because they would be afraid they would become a financial or emotional burden.
Although both are illegal in the United Kingdom, three British islands—Scotland, Jersey, and the Isle of Man—have said they are considering legalizing assisted suicide for terminally ill people.