They used to call it “assisted suicide”; but I understand from certain lawyer friends who are at the forefront of the battle that this is no longer an acceptable term. Terminally ill people in desperate straits who wish to shorten their lives are not really committing suicide, in the opinion of my lawyer friends. And those who help them shorten their lives are certainly not killers.
They are simply doing what the law has no right to prevent them from doing.
This issue was highlighted for me twice in recent times: an article in the New York Times on Debbie Purdy, a desperate woman who has primary progressive multiple sclerosis (which is the worst kind) and thus great difficulty swallowing; and an email last week from a woman with the same condition.
Both Ms Purdy, who is British, and my reader are considering going to a Swiss clinic in Zurich which is set up to help people die with a cocktail of potent drugs. I was asked by my reader what view I have on such clinics — what view I hold on the whole issue of whether or not the terminally ill should be allowed to shorten their own lives.
Those are two different issues. Of course I do have a view on the first question – I suspect anyone who has ever seen people die miserably must have one. I think how soon a very sick person dies is up to the individual, and no business at all of any government. But I also do realize that assisted suicide (sorry: I can’t stop myself) is a somewhat different issue. Namely, does anyone have the right to help the terminally end their lives?
And I don’t have a firm answer to that one. I wish I did.
Yes, I do understand that a lot of terminally ill patients, however anxious to end their pain, are too weak or incapacitated to shorten their own lives. But I also do sympathize with the concerns of certain ethicists: helping people end their lives is a slippery slope, or can be. Are we sure of the motives of every such “helper”? Can we ever be wholly sure?
The clinics with their poisonous cocktails: they’re money-making institutions, aren’t they? That worries me too.
But I’d be very interested in publishing other opinions, which may be stronger, less wishy-washy and more cogent than mine. Please write in — just click on the envelope icon — and tell me what you think.
Why stop the debate at helping sick people out of their misery? There are people with mental and social problems who have hard lives. Others who can’t earn a living in these times. And ugly ones. And stupid ones. All sorts of unhappy people. While that may not be your direct intention, Ms Bachrach, you are opening up your website to a debate about the pros and cons of MURDER. The mind boggles.
In most medical situations, it takes a while to become too incapacitated to swallow a bunch of pills. Modern prognoses can usually give a ballpark estimate of expected deterioration. People who want to end their lives should do it themselves and soon before it is too late, rather than waiting around and expecting someone else to do the dirty work for them and then have to live with it.