Warning: This piece of mine discusses death and assisted suicide. If you are not open to discussion on these topics, just move right along to the next post on your list. And be assured, this is not a situation I am currently contemplating. 😉
From the UN Declaration on Human Rights Article 1All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.Article 5No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.I assert my right to die when I choose and to do so peacefully, with the assistance of modern science…
In all of the ponderous discussions in public and in various legislatures about assisted dying, my rights in this matter do not rate a mention, let alone receive protection. There is no questioning of the role of the State or the medical profession as central players nor of the focus exclusively on terminal cases near to death. Any notion of the right to die with dignity at a point of your own choosing is totally ignored.At the moment, some jurisdictions have implemented or are on the verge of implementing various versions of assisted dying legislation. All of these centre on two core elements: the person must have a terminal illness (and must be certified as coherent and not depressed) and a bevy of medical people will decide who has access to the procedure.These provisions clearly exclude people who are in excruciating agony but are not going to die very soon, people with long term or acquired disabilities that make their life a misery, and people who have decided that there is little point in their continued existence for a multitude of reasons but don’t want to die violently, to name but a few categories.
Even more importantly, they exclude people who want to express their wishes when they are of sound mind and body to have their life terminated under certain conditions that may occur in the future e.g. they are demented and don’t know who anybody is anymore, they are reduced to sitting drugged in a nursing home having food forced in one end and wiped up at the other, they are in a coma and unlikely to recover etc.It is indisputable that many people remain on this mortal coil due to highly profitable drugs and eye-wateringly expensive health services. And of course many of the medically compromised are so as a result of the self-inflicted wounds of over-indulgence in food, smoking and alcohol.I know of what I speak because I fit into all of those risk groups but if you thought this aside was to be an episode of True Confessions you will be disappointed. And of course the ultimate irony is that over a lifetime I have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes on those items to the benefit of the accidentally injured and unwell.But what if I decide not to be part of the health care system in my later life and choose to get out of everybody’s road. Say I have been diagnosed with lung cancer, for argument’s sake. The medical profession would want to put me through months of chemo, radiation and whatever other experimental treatments they’ve invented recently, accompanied by the use of lots highly expensive machines that go ping.
Almost certainly I’d be in pain and discomfort throughout. Then, eventually, when the doctors agree that my illness is terminal and incurable, I would have to apply for permission to go, which wouldn’t be granted if they decide I’m depressed. Let me put it to you that depression would be the only rational response in that scenario.How we got here, in my view, is that gradually the idea that we all should be allowed, and want to, to live as long as possible, in any condition possible, has taken over any rational analysis by both electors and governments and abolished any notion of the cycle of life.Most people over 60 have had more than enough time to live a productive life through spawning and nurturing the next generation, growing food, making things, fixing things, selling things, teaching, writing a novel or any number of other worthwhile pursuits. Without major medical interventions and medications, most would pop their clogs in their seventies, with a smaller cohort winning the lottery of life into their eighties and beyond.If anyone ever bothered to ask them, on a confidential basis, I believe the vast majority of older people would say they would like to have the choice to depart this life peacefully and painlessly when their body, and more importantly, their brain, fails them to the point of incapacity. Many signal this openly through a range of end-of-life instructions, including Do Not Resuscitate (DNR).
However even when they leave strict instructions in this regard, their wishes are often ignored by doctors and families who refuse to come to grips with their own mortality and are, in fact, the real underminers of ‘God’s will’ or the natural cycle of life (whichever you prefer.) What we would do in the blink of an eye for a suffering pet suddenly becomes unthinkable.Those who have the physical capacity, but have been denied a humane ending, are condemned to do violence to themselves. It would seem society would prefer you left a mess for emergency services to clean up when people shoot themselves, or hang themselves, or slit their writs in the bath or drown at sea. Where is the compassion, let alone the common decency, to recognise what the UN calls cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment? Economically and socially, we have created a society where mere existence trumps a meaningful life and an entire industry has grown up to cash in on it and beggar the following generations in the process. The net result is that we have developed an unsustainable health care system and an aged care system that is eating up an increasing proportion of our GDP and beggaring the futures of the generations that follow. For example, several studies have shown that the cost of futile end-of-life treatments alone add up to hundreds of millions of dollars.
I think we need a society that accepts the adult individual’s right to depart this mortal coil as and when they please without stigma, without interference from laws, doctors or families, and with the as-of-right assistance of drugs that make that possible. In the name of all things humane, let me go when I want to and not when society decides to give me an early minute.
I liked your essay very much. It’s not a very popular topic. The deed must be prevented at all costs! I wonder why we feel the need to warn others about this subject.
Maybe we should also warn about joy and happiness. “If you are not open to discussion on joy and happiness, just move right along to the next post on your list.” 😉
This morning I had no post prepared but after reading yours I will be reposting a poem about death.
Blogging is like a chain reaction. One post can trigger another.
It can indeed, Ladysighs. The subject remains one of the great taboos. I am not normally one for trigger warnings but I thought I should in this case. Ironically, one of the first responses came from a friend who has just lost his son to stomach cancer and he wishes there had been another way for his son to choose to go. More power to your pen (or keyboard more likely). 😉
Couldn’t agree more Doug. Societal attitudes to dying when you choose are unsustainable and, in many cases, cruel. I have watched two of my loved ones die of cancer and the concept of a pain free death is an unconscionable lie
This is a hard topic, Doug, for many reasons. My mother was on dialysis for the last eight years of her life. Her heart operated at 5% of its capacity. Yet, she chose to live through several heart attacks and three days of hemodialysis a week. When her neck became so weak that she couldn’t hold her head up to play bridge with her friends, she decided that she wanted to quit dialysis. We went to her last session on Saturday with a box of candy to thank all the wonderful staff for all their work. On Sunday, my brother flew into town to be with her and to support me. I left her in the care of a friend in the assisted living home where she lived. While I was gone, her kidney shut down, causing her extreme pain. The doctor did not want to see her but told her she could go to the hospital. In the meantime, her shunt (It is the place where the dialysis machine is hooked to her body, shut down.) She may have had a change of heart on the way to the hospital emergency room, but her body had also made the decision for her. The ER doctor was concerned that without giving her sugar water, her brain was dying, and they wanted to hydrate her. I told him that she had quit dialysis the day before. With my permission, the ER doctor gave her morphine through her shunt, and she passed quickly and peacefully.
That must have been a very tough time for you, Marsha, and my sympathies are with you. That final medical decision must have been heart-breaking, but you had the knowledge that it’s what she wanted. Too often relatives will over-ride that because of their own beliefs. If you could find the courage to share this story, it would make a very powerful piece of nonfiction.
Six Crooked Highways 
I liked your essay very much. It’s not a very popular topic. The deed must be prevented at all costs! I wonder why we feel the need to warn others about this subject.
Maybe we should also warn about joy and happiness. “If you are not open to discussion on joy and happiness, just move right along to the next post on your list.” 😉
This morning I had no post prepared but after reading yours I will be reposting a poem about death.
Blogging is like a chain reaction. One post can trigger another.
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It can indeed, Ladysighs. The subject remains one of the great taboos. I am not normally one for trigger warnings but I thought I should in this case. Ironically, one of the first responses came from a friend who has just lost his son to stomach cancer and he wishes there had been another way for his son to choose to go. More power to your pen (or keyboard more likely). 😉
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Hear, hear.
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Thank you, Spira.
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Couldn’t agree more Doug. Societal attitudes to dying when you choose are unsustainable and, in many cases, cruel. I have watched two of my loved ones die of cancer and the concept of a pain free death is an unconscionable lie
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Coming from your recent tragic loss, Brian, your comments mean all the more to me. Thank you and go well.
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This is a hard topic, Doug, for many reasons. My mother was on dialysis for the last eight years of her life. Her heart operated at 5% of its capacity. Yet, she chose to live through several heart attacks and three days of hemodialysis a week. When her neck became so weak that she couldn’t hold her head up to play bridge with her friends, she decided that she wanted to quit dialysis. We went to her last session on Saturday with a box of candy to thank all the wonderful staff for all their work. On Sunday, my brother flew into town to be with her and to support me. I left her in the care of a friend in the assisted living home where she lived. While I was gone, her kidney shut down, causing her extreme pain. The doctor did not want to see her but told her she could go to the hospital. In the meantime, her shunt (It is the place where the dialysis machine is hooked to her body, shut down.) She may have had a change of heart on the way to the hospital emergency room, but her body had also made the decision for her. The ER doctor was concerned that without giving her sugar water, her brain was dying, and they wanted to hydrate her. I told him that she had quit dialysis the day before. With my permission, the ER doctor gave her morphine through her shunt, and she passed quickly and peacefully.
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That must have been a very tough time for you, Marsha, and my sympathies are with you. That final medical decision must have been heart-breaking, but you had the knowledge that it’s what she wanted. Too often relatives will over-ride that because of their own beliefs. If you could find the courage to share this story, it would make a very powerful piece of nonfiction.
LikeLike