My Body, My Choice

No, not abortion, though I am Pro Choice, and I will have a lot to say about that topic another time. This is about suicide for the elderly, and perhaps others who are infirmed but do not qualify for palliative care or doctor assisted death. Granted, Hospice and Palliative Care have brought us a long way from the “only God can give and take life” days. But even the four enlightened states where doctor assisted death is legal, only in cases where the patient is suffering physically and has less than some arbitrary amount of time to live, poor quality of life or the simple desire to move on, do not qualify as reasons to die. It is tricky to plan one’s own suicide because if one fails, one can end up a living vegetable. We shoot horses and euthanize our beloved animals so they don’t have to suffer. Religions tell our humans that they will expunge their earthly sins and earn a place in heaven through their earthly suffering. Governments make assisting death illegal, and control prescriptions; and societies and the Hippocratic oath promote preserving life without concern for Quality.

I am not promoting suicide for people who are depressed but could have a full and rich life if they treated their depression. I knew the parents of a young man who took his own life. He was in his early 30’s. He had progressive Multiple Sclerosis, was in a wheelchair, had lost his sight, his hearing was almost gone, and nothing was going to improve, but he had more than six months to live. Even his parents understood and accepted his decision to take his life. If they had helped him, they could have been arrested. Just as we use Beethoven to argue against abortion, we can use Stephen Hawkings to argue against suicide for the disabled. We are very good at finding ways for disabled people to live meaningful lives. My point is that people should have the right to make the decision to live or die, and be able to get assistance to do so.

My focus is on elderly people who want to end their lives. Within the past year I have known two people, one 79 and one 91 who prayed for God to take them. They couldn’t go to God when they wanted to because suicide is against the doctrine of each of their churches – fine, they chose to suffer. My life partner had a stroke that left him completely paralyzed and unable to communicate in any way. In palliative care, it took the blockage to his brain, or the morpheme; no way to know which, three days to kill him. How is that not doctor assisted, and could he not have been relieved of that misery in 3 hours?

My brother refused treatment when his kidneys were shutting down because he didn’t want to spend the money he had accumulated in his life on a worthless life in a nursing home. Without dialysis, he lived about a week. How is that decision different from suicide? My mother starved herself in a nursing home when she was ready to die; that is allowed; it took less than a month. Couldn’t these people have received medical assistance to hasten their paths to death.

Perhaps I am a bit of a control freak. I want to decide when I feel I am no longer useful in society, when I am taking up space and sucking up resources without contributing, when I am no longer interested in putting up the good fight, and if I am stricken with Dementia, or unable to end my life, I would wish for someone to help me, whether that is at 70, like my partner, or 80,or 90, or 100. I want to have the right to decide when to go, and most of my elderly friends have the same wish. But no one can help us because it would be against the law.

Are we reluctant to approve of merciful assisted death for the elderly because we fear that it will become popular to put a pillow over mom’s head before she is ready to go, in order to get the house and retirement funds. I do not believe giving old people the means and permission to exit when they want to go is going to encourage criminal behavior; it might conserve some resources, but it will definitely save some from being miserable in the final months or years of their lives.