As I have written many times before I am firmly in favour of the individual having the right to die, for them having the right to die where and when they choose. And unfortunately it is a topic that rears it’s head in our home. It has been mentioned in the last couple of weeks in fact. This was before the latest case involving right to die. This does not mean I am right – far from it – but it is a subject that we have both thought hard about because the time may come where it becomes our reality.
Going to Dignitas is one thing and it is expensive so ‘doing the deed’ at home is cheaper, closer to loved ones but it is also a lot closer to the law. But there is something important about Dignitas (or somewhere distant if it exists) that I have not seen discussed. It’s the act of leaving.
Maybe choosing to die in your home is too easy and too hard. It is easy on the person dying because they are in the environment they want to be, it is easy because although they are leaving they do not have to leave that environment first. It is hard on those that remain because the house then has unshakeable memories, the room will forever be ‘that room’, the room will never experience the happiness it could, maybe the home ends up being sold because creating a new life there would be too painful. So maybe leaving first is a better path for those that are left behind? If you want to die then maybe the best place for those you leave behind is somewhere away from the home, maybe somewhere so distant that visits to the scene are not expected. If you want to die then the acts of packing, saying goodbye, leaving the home and travelling while upsetting can only set your mind more firmly that what you are doing is right but also it gives that time to think again, to change your mind. It means that loved ones do not feel they have to be there, that they would be letting you down by not holding your hand. It means you can actually say Goodbye in a normal way that thousands do every day as you leave the home for that last time.
It makes things fair.
And if it makes the law that much further away then that is also a benefit. Regardless of what the law says there will always be the “But God loves you and it is HE that will take you” religious enforcers who will push and push for action to be taken for those left, for those that did what they knew what was actually wanted, for those where the physical matters more than the intangible.
Boris Johnson wrote an opinion piece over 2 years ago which I still think is excellent. But the problem with that bill is (was) that people must be close to death already. What if you are paralysed, have MS, Motor Neurone or any other destructive disease? So assisted suicide can’t just be for those that are medically close to death but also those trapped in bodies that at one time worked but now do not. But even so I don’t think home is the right place to do it. Some say that taking one’s life is being selfish and I disagree. But taking your life in your home and expecting others to just carry on does seem selfish for me. There should be the option to die though.
You are involved in an accident and paralysed from the neck down. You have great difficulty speaking. You need to be fed through a tube because you could choke if you tried to swallow food. Your body will lose all tone, you have no sensation but you do have pain. Your memory is impaired. So if you believe in God you would be happy to live your life like that? If not then you too support the right to die.
