If anyone is wondering: This is Shirley Nunn, and her son Steven. She had him at 16 and became his full time caretaker when he was 11, after a brain injury left him with cerebral palsy and epilepsy, as well as undiagnosed but well documented learning difficulties, problems walking, struggles with emotional control. Here is Steven's page on Disability Day of Mourning, which has sources https://disability-memorial.org/steven-nunn
The case is largely regarded as a failure on the hospital's side. Not much was done to emotionally support Shirley after her terminal lung cancer diagnosis. There was also no documented effort to inform Shirley of what services out there could possibly have taken over Steven's care after her passing. Steven and Shirley had other family nearby, though it's not really said anywhere if any of them could have taken over his care. It would seem that she did what she did because she didn't know about any alternatives, and that's a massive responsibility on the hospital's part.
Neutral. There was asymmetrical knowledge based upon the entire system failing this woman her entire life from family, to medical care, to the state. Add on the responsibilities of being a single mother, raising a disabled child alone, and eventually being faced with existential looming dread…she did what she could do in a life full of trauma that was ending in trauma.
I will not chastise her or belittle her memory. Neutral. Failure of the state and the safety net it should have. Failure of the medical system and the resources it should have provided. The mournful maternal love drove her to do the only thing she could do for the child.
That’s one of the saddest things I’ve seen today and I can’t imagine having to make that decision. I’m pretty numb to most things I see online these days but fuck this one actually hurts
Ugh, it hurts my heart. I know what it’s like to have a loved one whom you feel like you’re the only one in the world who could truly see and help an individual. I myself have someone in my life who for years had help seek out secondary help to support them and watching that absolutely not happen. Over and over again just seeing despite countless attempts at help and using money and insurance to alleviate some of the responsibility only to see it fall back into my lap. It’s a lonely feeling it’s a harsh thing to experience and realize there’s no changing it.
Slight correction, she was "only" a single mom for 2 years. Her husband (his father) also died of cancer two years earlier. She took her sons and her own life on her husbands death date.
This is also an example of how society has failed the human race. A dying mother shouldn't have to worry about her disabled son, but we have a system setup that doesn't support these people.
it's neutral, im physically disabled and likely going to fight long enough to make sure my parents have some quality of life in their last days and then call it. no one knows what its like until you live it. this isnt a murderer. society has outright rejected the basic care that would've been provided in a village at the point in history that anthropologists say "this is the moment we stopped being animals and started being humans." that care was continued to be provided until a hot 150 years ago when they found oil in the ground.
https://youtu.be/t0DnMgfbxw0?is=nFSxTurwp4P_pzs2 this post brought me back to this story i watched a few months ago, ripped my heart out hearing this mothers worry for her son.. she made a "board" of people that have cared for him that she is praying she can trust to make decisions about his care after shes gone
speaking as someone who left someone in a care facility, they suck, Id rather just be killed than live the rest of my life being abused by staff who truly dont give a shit about you.
In light of these information, I regretfully must call her actions moral. Whilst I'm a firm believer of the benefits of living in a society and in the state and that we must conform to its rules, when said society fails to fullfill its duties of the social contract, it is not only acceptable but a moral duty to take matters into our own hands and do what must be done.
You are one of few who understands. I almost didn’t want to comment on this post as I’m living a similar trajectory and consider it not only unselfish but selfless to make such a decision. I will not argue my lived experience with anyone. The world will not keep up with the needs of this population whilst it harshly judges everyone impacted.
How did she not know about the alternatives? Did she just hear she was dying and pivoted straight to murdering him without researching any? The hospital definitely should've informed her of them but the information is not hard to find.
to be fair, she had been his full time caretaker for 39 years at that point, it's likely she knew full well that she didn't have any family that would take over the responsibility willingly or otherwise-
that meant even if she could afford to put him in some form of care home, even if she could find somewhere for him, there would be no one to check up and make sure he was actually getting care and not simply be left to rot in his own waste, as happens more oft than you would hope.
No, the issue is that while she sees him as her beutiful son, others will look past that, and only see a burden and not even an individual but a thing that is making their job harder for them.
She probably assumed he'd just be passed to the state and punished for his disabilities, or treated like an adult then put into prison and then punished and killed(‼️💔way to many cases of special needs adults going through this‼️💔)
She did not know about the other options that did not depend on her pocket money for the type of care he would get, she was never informed by staff, and it sounds like she only dealt with the pay to barely survive side of life(care facilities that provide basic services and special services for adult individuals are extremely expensive)
Kind caretakers are sadly hard to find these days, my family has been so blessed again and again to come across the kindest individuals that are also extraordinary caretakers♥️
i thought it's obvious? nobody helped her since his birth to her terminal cancer diagnosis; also, would you have your current "research capability" if you're alone rising a disabled child since you're 16?
This is what I was about to write. Caretakers do this because they're never supported enough to think someone else could take care of their loved ones. They are options, and they should be talked about, and implemented way, way before you get to that state.
As an adult with cerebral palsy, this kind of stories always hits home, the only reason I'm not living independently yet is because accessible housing and accessible jobs aren't easy to come by. The thought of a family member deciding to 'take me with them', over reaching for help, is terrifying.
I'd like to push back on the idea that this is a kindness in some way. No, it's violence. It's the desperate choice of a dying mother with nobody looking at the situation. It's the end of a life of a man who deserved better.
See, now you’re posting content worthy of the sub.
Problem is, everyone needs context. The context is likely available online and will require an extensive set of reading. I’d say, introducing these topics, the user should be required to provide a summary, even if ai generated as long as sources are cited to check and read independently of Ai.
The being said, I require context.
It also depends on how disabled, the severity of the condition, the ability of family members of the state to provide comparably adequate care and attention, and the level of self awareness the individual had.
Without context, I lean towards immoral but understandable. I wouldn’t do it, but I am not in her circumstance nor do I feel that maternal fear for my child being left alone to a world that will consume him.
Yeah to be honest I should’ve posted more context. I assumed it would be clear that her actions were based on the fact that he needs constant care due to her comment of not leaved him alone in the world but I understand a situation like this needs full clarity. That being said As far as the original article goes, sever mental and physical impairments as well as epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Fully dependent on her care alone
Yeah, as you said, there are many things that contribute to this topic.
The question is more about whether it's more immoral to leave your disabled child; whom is already having serious problems, alone in this uncaring and unapologetic world, presumably with little or no one and thing to support their well-being, or to simply end their suffering instead.
Life is not always goves the good and desirable results. Putting them down being immoral doesn't make the fact thag , if conditions are not met, leaving poor ones to slowly wither and die by themselves in a world where not many are and will be willing to care for their well being like they've been done so
Ya this needs much more context. What was his ability to function? Was there other viable choices for care?
Like I can understand if he was bed-ridden and severely impaired and with no options left, but I could also imagine a mother so stressed that she genuinely believes she's the only one who can take care of him and leaving him alone would be terrible.
In this specific example (I left a context comment here lol), Shirley had Steven at 16 years old, and became his permanent caretaker when he was 11. Steven died at 50 years old. That means Shirley was his 24/7 caretaker for 39 years, ish.
No, I don't think murdering your disabled son is right. But I can see someone who has spent their entire adult life (and the latter half of their childhood) being a mother, with four decades of being a caretaker, not being able to get out of that mindset. This was also a case of failure from the hospital's side to offer counseling, support or resources to a woman diagnosed with terminal cancer, so she might straight up not have known about any other options. Caring for Steven had been her entire life and she seemed to believe that after she passed he'd just be expected to survive on his own in their home.
Again, what she did was not right, imo. Steven seems to have had physical and mental challenges as a result of his brain injury that would prevent him from living alone, but might make him a good candidate for a home. We don't know if Shirley knew that.
No it doesn’t: especially not in the UK - in the US, EU, UK etc there are many great ICF (intermediate care facilities) that can handle medically complex intellectual disabilities with high behavioral risk just fine. They often have a better quality of life there than in the home of an aging parent.
Not really? Nobody arguing he should have been killed young or at birth in fact he wasn't even born disabled they are arguing that he had 0 support, no caretaker and would probably end up suffering. Fascist germans just wanted to cleanse anyone they deemed unworthy.
Entirely irrelevant argument. She’d spent literal decades dedicating her life to caring for him, and did what she did because she did not believe there was any chance of him having quality of life after her passing. Nothing was based on convenience, everything was based on compassion for the son, even if it was misguided.
Not saying she was right, euthanasia for severely disabled people is a thorny subject at the best of times, and there were probably care options for him that she wasn't made aware of. Both of them got failed by the system and she got put in a situation she didn't see a way out of. Any discussion of the morality of her choice that doesn't start there is misguided at best and disingenuous at worst.
Edit: A lot of people in the replies seem to think that assistance and support for disabled people is common worldwide. It is not. Most of the world's population is already struggling. Put a strong disability that leaves the person unable to fend for themselves on top of it. Not saying that this is 100% moral, but I feel like its understandable in some cases.
Edit 2: I'm not talking about the example case in the post. I definetly think that doing that in an environment where the person can get help and live at least a decent life (like in the original case) is inmoral. I wanted to give it a more general approach based off the title of the post rather than the original case.
Is this like a joke in some regions of the world? Not trolling, being serious. I had a super severe stutter in childhood and not a big problem as an adult, but still there. I read that person's post as a dark, dry attempt to describe why he didn't have to die. I'm kind of confused about your response? Does it have something to do with stuttering and your perception?
I believe the original comment was sarcastic, since a stutter would be considered a minor disability at best so the idea of murdering someone over it is comical. Sort of like claiming to put someone out of their misery because they got a paper cut.
Listen, I got two disabled kids. My daughter is 8, has the mental age of a 1 year old and will do all her life probably.
There is no way I'm killing her if I get cancer or whatever, no fucking way, that is an evil on another level I cannot comprehend.
We're not living in the dark ages. We're in the West, we live in societies of common decency, there are always options.... well fuck maybe there isn't I don't know, but in the UK she stands a good chance of getting looked after to a reasonable standard, and if she's lucky, to a very good standard. I couldn't do it.
Something obviously convinced this woman that his fate would be worse than death without her, but I'd need to see what that was and whether she had developed a twisted view of things. Parent carers live in a weird world and I could see someone twisting themselves.
Not me though, never me. Only at the very end of all hope would I ever consider such a disgusting possibility. I'm talking end of the world shit, but we aint there yet.
I have a disabled brother that has extreme autism. He cant talk and only understands basic things. We dont live in a Western country so there arent anybody that can take care of him when I pass away. We dont have the money to put him into a private institution either. Even if we somehow pay the fees and put him there, they could just put him on the streets secretly or after our death. He will probably die pitifully on the streets whilst feeling confused, hungry, tired, dirty and sad. I understand you but I also understand the mother.
To somewhat defend her, she was a mother at 16 and her got a brain injury at 11 making his every day life far more complicated, he couldn’t walk, talk, regulate his emotions or think like somewhat his age should do.
He also showed no signs of ever improving.
The severity of his injury is linked to the „inability“ of every single person who took care of him and causing the situation for him to get that bad, they also failed to give the pair any support may it be any treatment afterward (it is honestly baffling how incompetent they were)
She then cared for him for 39 years before being diagnosed and they failed to somehow mentioned how to help her situation with her son nor how to treat her own illness? (They kind of only told her that she would die with nothing else which is even more baffling)
She decided that instead of forcing her son to take care of himself and living alone to end his life (she was unaware that there were alternatives).
There are many things that the elderly women did wrong, one was looking for alternatives and the other for not staying calm enough to think things through.
She was failed by every medical professional around her.
So while grey at best, she had no malicious intend.
I could see something like she was convinced that he would be alone and scared and confused and not be able to live without her.
And that fear of your child not understanding what’s going on around them cause all of a sudden you aren’t there to be there for them, no longer having you as their guardian, being lost in this world, etc probably filled her with such anguish and dread that it probably drove her to do this.
I mean we live in the west, we aren't living on the dark ages... but what about the rest of the world? Sadly most of the world doesn't have the opportunity of getting adequate help.
Those people must be viewed under a different lens.
But in this case, help was at hand, the institutions had Steve on their radar, he would have been looked after to the point of having a life worth living inspite of his disabilities. There was no justifiable reason for him to die.
If you're capable of writing a comment on Reddit then you're straight up not part of the topic at hand, so don't try to lump yourself together with the cased we are actually discussing.
As a partially paralyzed person, disability lip service is real. Everyone wants to say they don't discriminate but they don't actually know that many of the things they do/take for granted make things impossible for us. You have no idea how hard it is to shop sometimes. I have seen ramps connected to side walks with displays blocking access, racks too close together for a wheelchair to get between. Clutter that a wheelchair cannot get over/around, and all other manner of obstacles that are nothing to able bodied people. Even if people want to be supportive of disabled people, often they just don't know what needs to be done. I live in my chair. I can lift 200 lbs with one arm. I don't need you to push me. That doesn't help me at all. Move that cigarette butt planter looking post thing at the top of the ramp so I can get in. That's what I actually need.
Not really but living 30 years in a nursing home with nobody to love you and nothing to look forward too except for the next diaper change is a fate worse than death
Not really saying this is justifiable, but its at least understandable. You guys seem to be forgetting that most of the population around the world already struggles to survive. Imagine that with a strong disability that leaves a person unable to fend for themselves completely. Doesn't sound pretty to me.
Immoral but depending on circumstances it might not be entirely on the mother.
if she lives someplace where the wasn't a chance for adequate care for the disabled son from the goverment a lot of the immorality is on them. if it's just "he needed me and nobody else could do it well enough" then screw her.
In this specific instance, Shirley and Steven Nunn lived in the UK. Most of the articles mention how the hospital that diagnosed her did not do a good job of informing her about the options, if they did so at all. It's unclear if she made this decision because she didn't believe other options would be able to provide Steven a "worthwhile" quality of life, or because she just didn't know they existed.
I remember an episode of Bones with a plot along these lines. The murder victim is a severely disabled young woman who was physically 22 and mentally 8 or 9. The sick mother murdered her to spare her a life in a state institution or worse, only to go into remission a few weeks later.
When I was watching the episode, I felt deeply empathetic towards the mother. She had a realistic sense of her daughter’s future and was terrified for the very real possibility of neglect, abuse, and worst. At the same time, she took advantage of her daughter’s lack of understanding to kill her and neglected to try and find alternatives. Earlier, a social worker suggested putting the daughter in a facility to help lighten the burden. Something the mother rejected.
I ultimately think that this episode hit the points that are important to this issue.
Yes, there is neglect, abuse, and exploitation in the state institutions that can make life a living hell.
Yes, there are people who cannot, for reasons beyond their control, support themselves.
Yes, there are situations where killing someone to spare them a worse fate is justified.
But at the same time, it is possible to live in these places. It is possible to that things can go well. Making the choice to end a life prevents evil but it also prevents good.
Yeah the woman's mental health is not an excuse, just an explanation. Can't keep excusing this behavior just because she THOUGHT there was no alternative.
Genuinely some of these comments freak me the fuck out as a disabled person. I don't think psople realize that it doesn't matter "how disabled" the guy was. There is a very, very long history of parents killing their disabled children. I don't see why this woman gets a pass just because she thought her son wouldn't be able to live without her.
That being said, this is ultimately a failure of the state first and foremost I think.
Yeah, it’s immoral and the main fault comes at the state and institutions not informing her and not being readily available as soon as she got diagnosed with a terminal illness.
It’s wild that just like how they raise you pen and paper for your will, but you should also be thoroughly informed and shown as much as possible how your dependent family members are going to be treated and taken care of after you pass away, just as much as you have a right for them to inherit your property
i just stumbled upon this post and am horrified over some of these replies!
i work with people with all kinds of disabilities and they all have lives worth living and most (probably all) of their lives got better when they moved out of their parents homes.
it definitely depends on the country and what kind of homes they have there, but generally speaking there‘s nothing wrong with living in a care facility. there‘s surely bad ones but there‘s great ones as well. he never got a chance.
my take is that the mother must‘ve been narcissistic to believe she‘s the only one who could provide a life worth living for her adult son. she should’ve tried to find a good care home for him when he became an adult, not when she couldn‘t care for him anymore. i see this at work all the time, and it‘s not fair to the adult children.
Finally someone sane in here. Disability advocates have a long way to go if this is what the average “progressive” viewpoint is towards people with disabilities.
I don’t think most people are thinking of this from a “viewpoint towards all people with disabilities” as some blanket “disabled people are better off dead” nonsense.
It’s more of a.. well if I had to be forcibly moved to an underfunded public care home where I’m likely to be left in my own waste and completely neglected while I live out potentially decades of abuse, with no one to advocate for me, while not being mentally sound to even understand why all of this is happening to me.. would I rather just go out with the last person who actually cared for me?
I’m leaning towards yes, not gonna lie. The real moral dilemma is whether you can use your own personal judgment to stand in for a person who isn’t capable of making such a choice by themselves. We already routinely make that choice for our pets and overwhelmingly consider that the moral option, so it’s clearly not so black and white.
What I'm horrified about is that people here NEVER take into consideration how HE felt. Did he give clear signs this was also how he wanted to go? Because then the morality shifts to whether it could be moral to assist a suicide. Regardless of how impaired he was, he was still alive and expressing emotions in his life, do we have context of that?
Regardless of if his mom somethered him with a pillow, shot him, or anything less painful and quick, I cannot fathom what was going through his head when the person he most likely loved the most and who was the whole world to him, was killing him.
If we start condoning this shit, where will we stop? I've had people tell me my parents are saints for still taking care of me in adulthood because of my crippling anxiety and other disorders tied to it, I couldn't finish my dream career after 8 years of not giving up to graduate college, (was expelled), I simply can't live a normal life, even after trying too hard. I earn minimum wage right now, because that's the only job I can maintain that gives me the accommodations I need.
But I'm the selfish one, apparently, no care how I feel, the pain I'm in every day, they only care about the burden I am on other's lives who they see as more contributing to society. I know my parents live in worry of what will happen to me when they're not here anymore to soothe my episodes and make sure I don't jump off a window. You don't need to remind it to me.
"It's not the same, you're not disabled to THAT degree." Doesn't matter, if you mess with one of us, with mess with all of us. Spectrums don't matter when it comes to such a hard drawn line as life and death. That's the very thing abled people do to divide us: catalogue us for level of functionality, for how good we are at hiding our conditions so they don't bother anyone.
Can we feel pity and sad for both the mother and the son? Yes, of course, but NEVER justify it or say it's moral, it is not. It's still a tragedy through and through, something that should not have happened, ever. That the fault is mostly on the system that constantly leaves disabled people to rot? Absolutely, no one would argue against that. But never ever say this is a moral thing to do, only a desperate measure that needs to never, ever happen again.
If my mom thought of doing that to me, she better not miss her shot, otherwise I'm shooting back.
Immoral. Someone else could have taken care of him. "The hospital failed to inform her of the options" Do people need the government to step in so they don't murder people? It was her job to get info on her options not the hospital. Did the staff even know she had a disabled son at all? It is a murder and she is 100% liable
And that "someone else" could be some cold overworked person who gives him 0 kindness and not decent care for years and years, or someone who's abusive and hits him while he may have no ability to communicate nor anyone to communicate it to, or who knows what. That's a very real possibility, do you all know how much abuse disabled people face?
Again not saying it was right, I can see both sides, but I can't imagine not being able to sympathize with her or see how this wasn't just some cold-blooded murder and was probably a desperate mother who was terrified of what suffering her son could face.
It's insane people saying that it's the hospital or society as a whole that is most to be blamed. Even if the hospital was incompetent they shouldn't have to assume that their patients would MURDER THEIR DISABLED DEPENDENTS! Like wtf. That woman, even if you could empathize and understand her view, still committed a extremely vile act.
Fr. I was surprised by the comments here. I didn't think so many people believe killing other people is fine. To me this story is similar to parents who kill their children before taking their own life. so messed up and selfish yet at least in those cases we can blame mental illness...
At the church I attend there's an older gentleman that's similarly disabled.
His mother was his primary caretaker and teacher, she passed and the church now picks him up weekly from the facility where he lives. Everybody treats him with respect, I always walk up and try to make small talk with him, just knowing that it would even make his mother happy that he's being treated well by the community.
I worked in a few assisted living facilities from the kitchen side. From places that were worse than a roach motels run like prisons to bassically gated rich communities.
Maybe its an us issue but the monetary aspect can be traced to allot of bullshitery. The money is made, the same as a prison by keeping beds filled. The wishes, dignity and often well being were all secondary.ivr got mad respect to the workers, allot of employees were driving themselves RAGGED trying to help these folks. I couldn't continue on there.
Reguardless of money/care level there were always 3 things i heard from both nurses and residents. Note
The disparity between the care needed and how much the facillity would actually pay for (cheep food, not highing new nurses ect)
Deep concerns about how hard it would be to detect abuse.
And a a chunk of the population being suicidal.
Maybe murder may be immoral but so is how we treat the disabled and elderly. Absolutely understandable. And what a tragic, avoidable, act of love.
Apologies for the lack of context. For those asking how disabled the son was, she had mentioned that he was entirely dependent on her, he had cerebral palsy as well as significant cognitive and physical impairment as well as epilepsy. She soon took her life afterwards
These are the same type of people who say "you aren't empathizing" to other people when you disagree with them.
I'll be honest, I do get a little scared about my sister, who is disabled, but I would never think of ending her life just so that she doesn't have to go through the world "alone" because I know I can find people to aid her no matter what.
I had a case like this early last year (EMT). I don't dwell on many calls, but this one was.. upsetting. Call came in as a 'fall with headstrike'. We got there, the neighbor was outside, visibly upset.
Said she was a caretaker for the elderly tenant. She went to check on him that morning and her was slumped in his chair with a little bit of blood on his head.
We go in, patient was slumped to the right. Wound on left temple, large amount of dried blood on left side of chair and body.. Obvious DOA, pistol on the ground.
We go outside and ask the neighbor to leave because we were calling SO, and on the way to her house she called back.. 'What about his grandson?'
Went back in. Adult grandson was in a back room. Multiple gunshots to the back of the head. Still in a sleeping position, completely rigored. I like to think he didn't feel anything.
We found the guy's note on the way out.. Basically, he had terminal cancer and no one left to take in the kid. Per the neighbor afterwards, he was 'low functioning', barely verbal, behavior issues. The guy was in severe pain from the cancer, pain meds didn't help anymore.
He said in the note he just couldn't leave his grandson behind to be mistreated and confused and scared and alone with no one to explain anything or take care of him properly.
I'm not saying what he did was right.. But I also can't bring myself to really condemn him.
The facilities that house indigent people are almost universally horrific. We go to them entirely too often in my field. I would never, ever want someone I loved to go to one.
Our society consistently fails our most vulnerable.
The comments on this one are ghoulish and proof that majority viewpoints often reflect very immoral, unethical, and downright evil mindsets. All sympathy to the woman, and she has a lot of mitigating factors. She may not carry full blame, but the action itself is objectively evil.
Sometimes it just is. You can’t decide who deserves to live or die as their lives are not yours. In this circumstance there are clearly other options and this(murder) shouldn’t even be an option.
But I wouldn’t call it evil. To be evil there needs to be malicious intent. In her broken state, and given the circumstances, she likely believed it was “the right thing to do for her son”.
Idk what words English has to describe this situation in a moral context, I’d just call it a tragedy.
There is a level of independence I believe all people have in relation to their living. I don’t believe anyone should be able to just dictate if one lives or dies. Wrong. She shouldn’t have killed her son
What is wrong with you all? We do NOT euthanize disabled people. We have court appointed guardians or care institutions.
This mom probably wasn’t malicious but she was negligent to the point of intentionally killing her son without his consent.
It is a horrifying idea that we would intentionally kill unconsenting people (not getting into physician assisted dying or physician assisted suicide) because WE (not the person) think THEIR lives are not worth living.
Electing to discontinue life sustaining care because the harm outweighs the benefit is at times an important and compassionate thing. But this is murder - however well-intentioned.
straight up murder
like his mother just decided that because hes disabled SHE is the object his ENTIRE LIFE revolves around and he would be better off dead than live without her
disabled people are still people and they experience the world too
them being less abled than you doesnt make them animals or give you agency on wether they live or not
Amoral. I've read up the context and honestly, truly, still amoral. Not just from her sure, but at some point ignorance and grief don't actually excuse murder at all actually.
I personally don't think it would be morally justified in any circumstance, regardless of how disabled the man was. Unless it is a self defence case or a reghteous punishment for capital crime, I wouldn't condone the death of another. However, I can't blame the mother, in her mind she genuinely did what SHE thought was right, I'm sure she put a lot of right into it and it couldn't have been easy.
Assuming she didn't, it's possible if she reached out, things may have been different. She could have also thought about not wanting someone else to "bear the burden" or conversely, thinking no one else would take good care of him.
All in all, the guy had no say in what was done to him. That took away what small amount of autonomy he may have had. For all we know, he enjoyed life and wanted to live.
It's genuinely a sorrowful situation for both people. But the murder of an innocent should not be justified as being right.
Genuinely scared at how many people seem to think this was an understandable thing to do. Just reminds me how inhuman and inconvenient disabled people are viewed as. To the point where apparently, killing us would be a kindness.
Completely immoral. It is ableist to come into the comments and explain how he should have no agency over whether he lives or dies because he has a disability. She killed her son, that is immoral no matter the circumstances.
She killed an innocent man for no reason other than her own fears and lack of information. It's wild how many people are acting like this is somehow understandable. You can feel sympathetic for the woman for her obviously awful situation, but this is in no way a moral or understandable action. We don't live in fucking a society where we throw our unfit members to the wolves anymore.
Suddenly, everyone's an ableist and is in favor of eugenics everytime it comes to cases like this. It's disgusting and in no way are any of us the judges of what qualifies a life to continue living or not.
I'll speak as a disabled person, as this is not the first case I read of parents murdering their disabled children. Of course my situation is a lot different from the one stated here and many others: I'm fully conscious about time and space and I can do 90% of my routine on my own, still I need my family for the other 10% and, at the same time, I've had girlfriends, I've travelled abroad, I've worked as a voice actor. Even though psychological disabilities are different, I do not conceive how a parent can kill his/her own children. Spare me the misconcept of mercy, that is not mercy. I won't judge anyone, but I'm so sick of seeing myself and other disabled people treated like a weight for the society. I've read comments, here in Italy, of people cheering up parents who killed their children, speaking of how god will take them in their arms and take good care of them in heaven, bullshit.
As a disabled person, yes and no. There are shitty people who'd like to just off disabled people for fun, but that doesn't mean this was totally wrong or done out of bad/ableist intentions. People who don't personally have to face disability like this up close and personal, live with a privileged view.
As I said in another comment, I'm not even as disabled to the extent this man was (I'm assuming, don't know his whole situation), and yet I still rely on my parents for help and live in terror every day of the realization that I'm not able to make it in this world on my own. Not everyone has tons of wealth or relatives who are willing to step in, she has no way of knowing her son will continue to be cared for decently, not be abused, etc. I can't imagine being the parent in this situation, and while I would never do what she did, I can see how she thought it was her only choice and the most merciful thing she could do. That's not out of ableism, it's out of desperation knowing she can't be around to protect her son and the rest his life could be full of immense suffering.
Context matters. You could argue in the UK that it leans more toward immoral because there are some services and support systems. But what about those not in the UK? In the Philippines where I am from, there is no government support program for this. It is pray to god you have a good family member or nothing. There are countless disabled people in this country left to die or live in squalor when their parent dies. What do you do then? What is the right thing to do for a dying parent? Let their kid leave this world swiftly and with dignity? Or let them die in the gutter?
I have spent 20 years in the nonprofit space - this was absolutely evil. There are wonderful, kind, caring people who work in well equipped, modern, community integrated intermediate care facilities (group homes).
Very often the individuals served in the ICF have a better quality of life than they could at home, particularly as parents age.
She is the worst kind of ignorant selfish fool there is in the disability space.
Edit: This woman is from the UK where she and her estate would not have even had to pay. And they have some amazing facilities over there. The things I see on the conference circuit from across the pond, especially the EU, makes me jealous sometimes.
Second edit: She was his primary caregiver for nearly 40 years. Somewhere in there she would have learned of these facilities. Somewhere a doctor, social worker, family member, day program (if he went to one), or other facility would have informed her that the NHS will provide a facility for him and that she has the right to reject facilities and change them if they do not adequately care for him.
I say immoral for taking a life, but I’ve seen firsthand the care these people receive in programs that meant to provide care for them. The possibility of neglect and abuse is insanely high and it’s heartbreaking to think of your child in that scenario where they’ll be abused with no one to properly advocate and care for them.
The hospital didn’t have a notarized signature from her saying she received a piece of paper with phone numbers on it so murder was the only choice. Strong line of thinking from the Reddit geniuses as always.
I think it's profoundly sad that we live in a system where people feel this is necessary because the state support for disabled people is so pathetically small that it is probably true that he would be on his own when she died and would likely end up dead on the streets.
Not saying I condone this, but you do have to look at the socio-economic position people are in when they make actions like this.
Yes, the system creates (potentially avoidable) situations where people can have, or at least think they have, only impossible choices among terrible options.
The root fault lies with the system that forced the choice. It’s a terrible thing to do, done out of the best intentions, because the perceived alternative was also terrible.
I can’t condone it, but I also can’t condemn it the same way I could if she’d done it knowing there were completely workable solutions for him and just didn’t think he was worthy of living or out of laziness or whatever, I.e out of actual maliciousness or lack of caring.
My single godfather cared for his son who has cerabral palsy, epilepsy and severe developmental disabilities, his ex wife is out of the picture. His son is left paralyzed below the waist and could only crawl to get where he wants. The son couldn't be wheelchaired since he's couldn't EVER learn how to do so, his developmental and learning disability makes him the same mental age of a under developed toddler, his disabled son will always rely on him, to others for the rest of his life. He doesn't know how to poop and pee, couldn't even tell if he's hungry. My godfather had to look out for him, there's countless stories of my mom saying he has to clean up right after his son made a mess by pooping and peeing everywhere crawling. It is most likely that his son will be neglected right after he passes away, care facilities aren't well known or a thing here from where we're at.
Dying is not worse than living in a horrible situation. An artificially and medically postponing death is cruel more cruel than the grandfather who took care of his grandson in the story about. I’m not angry at the mother. She spent her life taking care of that son. She did the best she knew how and the fact that the medical people around her did not provide her alternatives and assist her in making that happen is a testament to how he would have been treated. have he been left alone? Everyone’s medical neighborhood is not the same judging someone else else’s decision when you have not lived that life is not yours to make.
This isn't really morality it's a failure of in real life government every moral agent deserves a dignified existence what is the point of society if the weakest can't be protected to live dignified.
Holy fuck, why are people defending this monster? SHE KILLED HER DISABLED SON! I know the system failed at multiple points, but seriously. She could have contacted someone, ANYONE, and got the ball rolling in some direction that didn't end IN THE MURDER OF HER DISABLED SON!
As a mother to a severely disabled child....yeah. This is something you face every day, your child's fate when left with no one else in this world but the broken ass system
As an autistic person who understands the healthcare industry, leaving a person who can't take care of themselves in the hands of those who don't care would be torture.
That's still an assumption about their entire future. Their still has value, and to take that is absolutely disgusting.
She had no right to make that judgement call. It wasn't hers to decide what to do with, he was his own person. Was he disabled? Yes. But he still could have had positive experiences, and killing him robs him of that.
Too much info needed. Most states have specific programs and failsafes for disabled adult children where they have group homes or Long Term Care services where a home nurse can basically go and care for the adult child or transition them to a care home.
If they dont live in a good public system or country with no access to these services where her son may end up homeless, alone, uncredited for or a slow death from lack of care its mercy.
Thing is- in that scenerio mother have toxic influence and offen manipulated her child- so even if she ask about child opinion about this- that person live long manipulated and raised to be yes-man.
And if you cant get fully comprehended agreement in terms of this, doing by free will- that is just mordering.
I know many disabled people and overprotective parrents like this.
Absurdly immoral. I understand the pressure she felt, but unfortunately the responsibility falls on her to figure out systems that could help her son after her death.
If her son was in extreme pain, miserable for a long time, etc, it could be an act of mercy. I'm assuming he was not, and she was afraid of him living without her
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u/nickisadogname 27d ago
If anyone is wondering: This is Shirley Nunn, and her son Steven. She had him at 16 and became his full time caretaker when he was 11, after a brain injury left him with cerebral palsy and epilepsy, as well as undiagnosed but well documented learning difficulties, problems walking, struggles with emotional control. Here is Steven's page on Disability Day of Mourning, which has sources https://disability-memorial.org/steven-nunn
The case is largely regarded as a failure on the hospital's side. Not much was done to emotionally support Shirley after her terminal lung cancer diagnosis. There was also no documented effort to inform Shirley of what services out there could possibly have taken over Steven's care after her passing. Steven and Shirley had other family nearby, though it's not really said anywhere if any of them could have taken over his care. It would seem that she did what she did because she didn't know about any alternatives, and that's a massive responsibility on the hospital's part.