A Time to Be Born, and a Time to Die _Ecclesiastes 3:2

TV evangelist Pat Robertson unloosed a barrage of criticism across the political spectrum when he responded to a question about a man ditching his wife who has Alzheimer's by telling him to "divorce her and start all over again," disregarding the death-do-us-part thingy saying "this is a kind of death."

I would have missed this nugget except I was in a Veterans Administration hospital waiting room at the time being held captive to some earlier patient's decision to dial Robertson's 700 Club onto the TV. Clearly Robertson was much more distraught the husband might engage in sin by having an extra-marital affair than about him abandoning his wife.

I'm not going to judge a person's actions in such life shattering situations or even Robertson's weird counsel, but it got me thinking. If Alzheimer's, or any other fatal condition, is in effect death-like, then why do legal and religious proscriptions exist about assisted suicide in those circumstances if you're already like dead, or going to be like dead?

In fact, where does government get off having anything to do about your living or dying arrangements to begin with? This is such blatant interference in the most personal and private decision a person and his or her family make it's laughable to pretend it has nothing to do with satisfying some religious screed.

Oregon's Death with Dignity law is America's most enlightened assisted suicide ruling but is hardly a radical end-of-life solution. You need to be in constant, excruciating pain with only weeks to live before docs will even consider pulling the plug. Some dignity.

I don't want to get to the point where I'm stuffed with morphine, aides changing my diapers and feeding me gruel, watching every dignity evaporate in paroxysms of pain, expending a lifetime's savings and being grateful 51 percent of some state's legislators condescended to allow me to decide my own fate…in a couple more weeks.

If the quality of my life begins to deteriorate, CloseI expect to determine the time I will die not some bureaucrat. I expect to get my life in order not rot in some hospital bed knowing I've burdened my sons with a ton of paperwork and a lifetime of accumulated flotsam. I expect to bring closure to my life while I'm healthy enough to gather family and friends to share in joyous remembrance and a peaceful exit in a dignified and medically appropriate manner not traumatize them as a decaying lump in a fetid deathbed.

The most precious right we possess as human beings and Americans is control over our own life. Should we expect anything less than the ability to decide for ourselves when to end it? Why are zealots always so frightened to let us make our own decisions?