A lady has won the right to find out if her husband would be prosecuted if he flew with her to Switzerland when she was ready to die. I believe the law lords have said that the Director of Public Prosecutions should give a definition of the law and when a person would be prosecuted under this law. I respect and understand her decision to fight this case to protect her husband.
I am completely torn on this subject. I can understand and respect her and others wish to die with dignity. This maybe a way that she and her family can prepare for the end but suicide is wrong. We should be looking at better medical care rather than letting people travel abroad to kill themselves. The pro life part of me says that suicide for any reason is wrong and a very selfish act, people have to deal with the aftermath of any suicide. The other part of me wouldn’t want to see someone I loved deeply suffer and would want to protect others if I was in that position. Whatever happens I hope the family involved find some peace.
The fact is, that there just isn't the medical know-how at the moment to enable people in certain situations to live out their last days pain-free and with a feeling of dignity. So I don't think it's a case of "We should be looking at better medical care rather than letting people travel abroad to kill themselves", I think we should be doing both - pile as many resources as we can into preventing the need for this in the first place by all means, but don't deny people the right to choose in the meantime until we can offer them something better.
ReplyDeleteI can’t say I have a fixed view on this. I believe that because of the way we think about things we fan our pain into greater suffering than an animal might with a more limited cognitive capacity so, on the basis of relief of suffering, it’s more justified for humans than for animals. I do wonder if they are ‘put to sleep’ because we cannot cope with our own discomfort.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand I believe our minds also offer us the possibility to dive into the midst of our pain and be transformed for the better by it.
On yet another hand, someone I had a brief relationship was later dying from AIDS. Aside from the daily humiliations and pain the disease brought him, he was an Art lover who was fast losing his sight and had always declared that he would rather kill himself than suffer a lingering death. He took an overdose but was discovered and revived. Later, he disappeared and, much later his body found in the Thames. It appeared he’d managed to slip away, struggled, in his infirmed state, to travel to London Bridge by train, then, unnoticed, jumped off.
I have often been in very bad spaces and have considered the pain my suicide might cause, but what is seldom appreciated by others is the extreme of torment one can find oneself in, in these moments, that may haunt the whole of one’s life. I have often wondered whether it might have been better all round (certainly for me) if my first, albeit half hearted attempt when I was about 10 had been successful.
Merely some thoughts on a very complex subject.
as a cancer survivor I am fully in support of assisted suicide.Not because i need it now but the knowledge that if the time came when the pain is too great and the quality of life to poor i could choose it.
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