Hello all
I have been a long time reader on RAWK, only recently signed up and up until now didn't feel I had anything particularly constructive to add, especially to the endless tedium that makes up most threads here. I was going to start a topic as I had just finished watching Choosing to Die, but happily came across this and I have to say I was fairly suprised yet happy to see that the general consensus was pro euthanasia and ultimately pro choice.
So to start off the main gist of my post, I thought I would add an article by Michael Wenham writing in the Guardian that perhaps goes against what I believe, to help start up the debate.
We have just had a visit from our old friends, Jill and Dan. They are a remarkable couple. She was left a paraplegic after a motorbike accident 52 years ago. What a dire prospect for an active girl still in her teens! But she went on to be married, despite family pressure, to Dan, who lived in the same village. She wanted to have a family, and it of course seemed she'd have to have a baby by Caesarean section. In fact she was the first paraplegic to have a natural birth, watched by doctors from around the world, and went on to have two more boys. After their first was born, Dan was told: "You know, paraplegics normally survive just 10 years."
As for Dan, when we first met him 22 years ago, he'd been diagnosed with leukaemia and given six months to live. Then a new consultant came who agreed to break the rule of no bone-marrow transplants for over 50s. It was a sensible rule on money and outcome grounds, but Dan was basically a fit man. So he was given the transplant and a few years later a leucocyte infusion. He's still, I believe, the oldest surviving man to have had the procedure. He's the one survivor of five at that time. Life's not been easy for them, and it isn't. But they are full of life and affection.
I couldn't help reflecting how different their, and therefore their family's – and indeed our own – life would have been if the brave new world of Dignitas and its promoters had arrived here in Britain. Jill, a keen horsewoman, unable to walk, let alone mount her horse; the young woman dreaming of having four children – dropped by her boyfriend, before linking up with Dan – having her dreams dashed. Can't you imagine her being depressed, wanting to end it all? "It's my life; what future have I got? It's my choice. I want to die, now." And then years later Dan being told: "We can't cure you. Within six months you'll be dead. It won't be very pleasant. But we can offer you this shortcut treatment, which will relieve all the suffering for you and the heartache for your family. But it's your choice." "What's that?" he asks. "Oh, only doctor-assisted suicide. It's easy and pain free." No pressure! How different and much poorer history would have been if the brave new world we saw promoted on BBC2 on Monday night were here.
Jill and Dan have had and continue to have a full life. They're fun to be with and they live busy, normal (one forgets how extraordinary it is living with Jill's disability, day in day out) lives. They actually enrich you in knowing them. I expect that they would say that, having determined to live, their experiences have enriched them. It might have been so different. But they trusted it would be well. What was it that Mick the cabbie said on last night's programme? "I decided to give it one more throw of the dice." For him the hospice had given him a new lease of life.
In truth, he wasn't the subject of Terry Pratchett's creative documentary, Choosing to Die, last night. It was, of course, carefully crafted and mildly poetic. We saw Alpine vistas, lakes and snow-scapes – vaguely like a travel brochure. We saw close-ups of emotional faces, even tears. We had the swelling strains of Elgar to mark the death of Andrew Colgan, a 42-year-old man with MS. And an inability to face the moment of death itself (about which I'm glad), although we had pretty much everything else around that. Despite Pratchett's resounding declaration: "I've been in the presence of the bravest man I've ever met," it left a bitter taste in my mouth as if we'd been served a cocktail of death disguised as an elixir of life.
I've been thinking about that accolade of "bravery" and it occurs to me that there was only superficial examination of motivation. There was an unchallenged assumption that MND (and MS) would lead to intolerable suffering and indignity. As I've observed in the past, that was one of my own early concerns – until an association visitor told me it needn't be the case. But one had the impression that Peter Smedley, who chose to end his life after being diagnosed with MND, wanted to avoid the later stages of the disease because he'd always been strong and in control. And actually he was afraid of losing control. Certainly someone I know with MS is terrified of "not being in charge". "I want to be able to choose," she says. And that, of course, is Pratchett's line: "My life, my death, my choice" – falsely premised though it is, for who chooses their life, who chooses to be born?
One might more charitably guess that both Smedley and Colgan wanted to spare their families the pain of caring for them and watching them through the latter stages of their lives. Yet this didn't appear to be their motive. Neither Smedley's wife nor Colgan's mother wanted their loved ones to take their own lives. They, it seemed, would have chosen to care for them to the end, as Pratchett's wife for him. In my view, the true badges of courage belong to the women who sacrificed their wishes and their instincts to their loved ones' demands. To be there to witness their unnecessary and undesired deaths, just for the sake of the other, that was real bravery. Gallantry awards are won by men and women who risk their lives for others. I don't think we saw that in the men last night. I think we saw people who were afraid of what might lie ahead for themselves and decided to face the lesser of two monsters.
And that, I believe, is the tragedy of the film and of the campaign that lies behind it. The repeated refrain, especially in the Newsnight discussion that followed, was "It's my choice", "It's his choice". There was a sort of pre-suicide litany: "Is this your choice? Do you understand what you're choosing? Do you want to take this mixture which will put you to sleep and kill you? Are you sure?" The resigned women in the end could only say: "It's his choice", "You must choose." How etiolated is that view of existence. My world, when all is said and done, is ME. My individual choice is sovereign. I want my kingdom. And the rest doesn't matter. The individual is the ace, trumping all else.
Well, that's a pretty impoverished world. In fact, interdependence is the secret of society. We are dependent on each other, and that's something for celebrating, not fearing, for embracing, not avoiding. Perhaps the city is an image of heaven because community is the heart of human existence. The best thing in life is to experience the extraordinary depth with which one can be loved. It's to discover the utter disinterestedness of those who love you, to find out when you can give nothing back, literally nothing but distasteful work and pain, they still want to look after you; they still care for you; yes, they still love you.
The tragedy of Peter Smedley and Andrew Colgan, it seems to me, is that they didn't trust themselves to the journey their loved ones wanted to travel with them – because if they had, the road might well have been rough, but they would have discovered, hand in hand with them, beauties of the human spirit few of us ever glimpse.
I'll also chuck in this from elsewhere...
Writing on the Christian Concern website, Michael Nazir-Ali [the retired Bishop of Rochester] said: "Real life is quite different from Sir Terry's science fiction ... The Judaeo-Christian tradition is a surer guide. 'Thou shalt not kill' is about acknowledging the gift and dignity of human life which, whether ours or another's, we do not have the competence to take."
Care not Killing's campaign director, Dr Peter Saunders said: "This latest move by the BBC is a disgraceful use of licence-payers' money and further evidence of a blatant campaigning stance. The corporation has now produced five documentaries or docudramas since 2008 portraying assisted suicide in a positive light. Where are the balancing programmes showing the benefits of palliative care, promoting investment on social support for vulnerable people or highlighting the great dangers of legalisation which have convinced parliaments in Australia, France, Canada, Scotland and the US to resist any change in the law in the last 12 months alone?"
Thankfully I’ve never been in a situation where someone I love has a terminal illness, I’m a relatively young man (25) and have those horrible experiences yet to come no doubt. However, I am I suppose extremely liberal in my views, and have always believed people have the right to choose, whether it be abortion, euthanasia or the use of illegal drugs for fun on a weekend. If you get right down to the core of it, for me, as long as you are not affecting others adversely (in the case of drug use for example), take other peoples considerations in to view and the general feeling is that its a good move then alls well.
I don’t think I am intelligent enough to fully enter in to the debate on the legalities of choice of death. But, Paxman asked Sir Pratchett if there should be a cut off age, and he replied simply “The age of consent”. Paxman replied with something about teens and a look of shock, but I’m with Terry on that. How can you put an age on it? If someone with MND is 18 or 80, what is the difference? I guess if it was medically proven that younger people get a longer time before the heavy onset of their disease kicks in, then that would have to be taken in to consideration but ultimately no matter how many moons you have seen you are in the same boat.
As usual I’ve rambled off on a tangent and haven’t even discussed the first article I quoted. Although saying that and re-reading it again, maybe I should just dismiss it out of hand. I think the author seems to think that if this system were in our country, and you had been told you only had X amount of time to live, they would almost try and sell you the idea of euthanasia. I’m pretty certain this would not be the case, in fact I don’t think clinics of this natural should be in any way associated with places of health such as hospitals. As I said I can’t speak from personal experience, but if you had been told you had leukemia as his friend did, you wouldn’t rush in to a decision like assisted suicide without at first seeing how your body would react. If you were getting near to that X mark in time and still feeling good (or at least as well as could be reasonable to carry on living happily) your obviously not gonna call the last resort clinic. On the other hand if you start to rapidly go downhill, the option is there to take before things become extremely painful for yourself and your loved ones.
Andrews mother put it like this; “Should I have torn up the passport? But it would have been selfish and not loving. I don’t think like Andrew thinks. I always think tomorrows going to be another day... but ultimately we’re just going to have to get through it because we can’t bear to think of him lying in a bed in some of the conditions he could possibly end up in. It took a long long while to realise that the quality of life is unacceptable it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks, its their decision and I think its their right.”
Peter Smedley and his wife Christine were a joy to watch and learn from (aside from the German gag!) and I have enormous amounts of respect for them for letting cameras document such a profound moment in their and at the end of one of their lives. I think ultimately dying with dignitity but ultimately happy with the choice that you and your loved ones have made and accepted is a far more preferable way to go.
RIP Peter Smedley & Andrew Colgan.
YNWA
