Margo MacDonald’s Assisted Suicide (Scotland) draft was published last week. The same day a woman I’d known all my life died after a condition she’d had since her teens finally deteriorated to a terminal state. She was one of the strongest, bravest, bawdiest people I’ve had the privilege to know. I’m not going to enumerate her suffering here because, frankly, it’s not relevant. She was great, everyone who knew her was a better person for doing so.  What is relevant is her determination to maintain control over her life.
I don’t just mean the choice to live or die here, I mean control over every aspect of life. What the home helpers did, when they came, what they cooked (I discovered at her farewell that a book of offal cookery I’d given her was appreciated by everybody but the people charged with trimming chicken livers), the relationship they had with her wasn’t a bureaucratic one. It was a personal one.
I don’t know what the end was like for her. She’d experienced things I actually can’t describe. She’d been fighting for decades. There are many people like her. People who know what’s happening to them.
Who are we to deny them? What right does any of us have to say “no, you must suffer indignity and incapacity”?
My friend didn’t chose that way. She literally fought until her dying breath. It’s not for her that I write this.
It’s for me.
My disabilities aren’t life limiting. I will hopefully get old, my body will fail and, when the time comes as it does to all of us I will die.
I don’t know if I can be as brave as my friend. When my mind fails, when my body gives in and there’s clearly no way back I want my love ones around me followed by an armful of morphine.
“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of one’s own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who is leaving is still there.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Expeditions of an Untimely Man
Who is society to deny me that?
#1 by Dawve30 on January 30, 2012 - 9:07 am
My younger sister ded on the 6th of December last year after a 2 year fight with cancer.
We watched her fight daily to spend more time with her 8 year old son. Never in he 2 years did she cry or moan about the pain.
Finally in the last month it became too much the slightest movement off her and or foot caused massive amounts of pain. Turning her caused screams of pain i hope to never hear the like off again.
With 2 weeks left she asked if with tears in her eyes if we could afford to send her to switzerland. She had been through enough. Unfortunately we are not in the financial position to do this for her. Give our loved sister the chance to die with the dignity she deserved.
For a further 2 weeks we visited watching her pain grow daily as the drugs did nothing. It tore us apart knowing she had chosen to end her suffering and we could not help.
Finally when the end came there was no possibility of dignity. All i had left were memories, a hole in myself that i don’t ever think will repair itself and a deep feeling of shame that we had to let her continue to suffer when she had chosen otherwise.
I hope Margo’s bill attracts the support need to make assisted suicide legal. No one should have to carry the shame i now feel at not being able to help my sister end her suffering when she had chosen to.
#2 by Caron on January 30, 2012 - 10:24 am
Much sympathy on the loss of your friend.
Your post is brief but I agree wholeheartedly. I don’t hold out much hope for Margo’s Bill, sadly, but I would like to see something like it implemented. My only reservations would be that research into palliative care should not be downgraded because assisted dying is available. There must be a real choice.
#3 by gavin on January 30, 2012 - 11:38 am
Some 50years ago, a well-loved uncle of mine had terminal cancer. He was allowed home near the end, got his affairs in order, and all the family who wished to, got the chance to say good-bye. He had all his wits about him and died a very short time later. This came about because his doctor was both a friend and old fashioned in these things. I wish Margo all the best with this as I would like to have the chance to go with dignity at my end and not have my suffering extended to salve the conscience of some religious enthusiast.
#4 by Indy on January 30, 2012 - 11:41 am
The problem is surely how to have euthanasia in the context of a socialised healthcare system. In Switzerland and Holland etc clinics that do euthanasia are not part of a state system. That’s the obvious problem that people sometimes overlook I fear. It’s just very difficult to see how Margo’s scheme could possibly work in the NHS.
Incidentally I don’t think anybody is saying you must suffer indignity and incapacity. People can take their own lives but I guess the situation arises when someone maybe doesn’t know how bad it is going to get and when they realise they want to die they don’t have the physical capacity to do it any more. But while on the face of it we might think yes of course they should get help in that situation if, essentially you are talking about doctors ending someone’s life before there is a clinical need for them to do that, there needs to be much more consideration of how you could make such a thing possible and put in the right safeguards in a publicly funded healthcare system. Margo didn’t convince many people on those points the last time round, that’s why MSPs said no.
#5 by Richard on January 30, 2012 - 1:03 pm
Thank you Aidan. Freed from the shackles of party politics you talk a lot of sense.
I particularly like the Nietzsche quote.