I want to die with dignity, when I choose, how I choose
The debate and the law on ‘assisted dying’ should be seen in the same context as abortion
We are all going to die. Sad, but true. So the key questions to face up to are: how and when and who decides. The debate about how to make dying as pain-free and dignified as possible is getting hijacked by people who see it quite differently and want to keep us all alive even if we cannot breath or speak or think, or say what we want.
Modern medicine means we can keep people alive long after they are comfortable. They can have pegs to feed them when they can no longer eat or drink, they can dribble and defecate their way into months or years of less than a half-life. I have seen loved ones suffer like this, who I know would not have wanted it.
I really don’t want that.
Cards on the table. I want to be remembered as a lively and energetic person, not an incontinent shell with no memory of who I am, who cannot walk or talk. I want to go into that long sleep in my own time, when it is my decision and preferably painlessly, with my dignity in tact. I want my family to remember me at my most forceful and loving.
The legislation being proposed means that only people who have a terminal diagnosis can request the means to die and they will not only need two doctors to support this but also will have to go to a high court judge to get permission to die. Involving a judge will mean that you have to get a lawyer and this costs money which means only rich people can do have access to it (they’ll be no legal aid). It will also mean delaying the process for goodness knows how long, taking even more control away from you and me, as there are not lots of spare judges sitting around with nothing to do. It is suggested the judge will be from the family courts, but we all know the terrible scandals coming from the family court decisions so I am afraid I have no confidence in this suggestion.
I don’t see why it should not be like getting an abortion. Many of the same moral and family issues about pushing to kill the disabled apply to both abortion and assisted dying, indeed it is the very powerful disabled and simplistic religious lobby who opposed, and oppose, both.
I would be very happy to go to two independent doctors to present my case to die in my own time in exactly the same way as having to go to two doctors to get an abortion. Seeking an abortion requires setting your plight to two doctors and there is then a waiting time until it can be carried out.
It is being suggested that we take cautious first steps to assisted dying legislation and see how it goes and it could extended later. But experience shows that we need to get things right first time. Abortion legislation, even though it was pretty radical at the time, has stood test of time, although of course there are still people opposing it. It will be the same with assisted dying, there will also be people who argue against it, but they should not prevent it being brought in to law. The nay-sayers would be responsible for the suffering they want to inflict on people coming to the end of their lives.
We should be funding hospices properly so they can help keep people alive when that is what they want, but also help those of us who want to die with dignity.
No one is suggesting that the disabled or very sick should be killed against their wishes, that is absurd and insulting and cruel. Of course the vulnerable who do not want to die yet should be protected, but we who want the power to die in our way should also be protected.
Dying my way, in my time. It is my body, it is my right.
Sadly there are no real protections for disabled, elderly, or vulnerable people who are likely to be pushed towards euthanasia without meaningful informed consent. It is misleading to align this with abortion. There are multiple differences not the least of which is consent and adult autonomy. One similarity though is that disability is a common thread when it comes to deciding who lives and who doesn't.