The Right to Die

The brewing controversy over the assisted suicides of two of Britain's most distinguished performers has been long in coming. It pits religious thugs, reactionaries, law enforcement and government and healthcare muckity-mucks against seniors, families and the terminally ill for whom the right to die is a real issue and not merely some theological, theoretical or bureaucratic rigmarole.

Edward (85) and Joan (74) Downes were among nearly a 120 Brits who have availed themselves of the services of the Dignitas clinic in Zurich Switzerland since its opening in 1998. The clinic provides assisted suicide through a lethal cocktail of barbiturates in a safe and comfortable setting. Dignitas charges about $6,570 for each assisted suicide.

Here's what's stirring the pot. Edward was not terminally ill at the time of his death, choosing to die with his failing, lifelong partner. The Downes adult children were present and later in an interview reported. "They wanted to be next to each other when they died. It is a very civilized way to end your life, and I don't understand why the legal position in this country (Britain) doesn't allow it."

Naturally, the establishment is aghast. Scotland Yard is investigating and may press charges against the Downes' children for "assisting" in a suicide. The British Medical Association voted against legalizing assisted suicide or lifting the threat of prosecution from friends and relatives who accompany loved ones to die abroad. And, the anachronism of all anachronisms, the House of Lords defeated a bill that would have allowed people to travel abroad to help people choosing to die.

Even those who supposedly support assisted suicide were appalled. Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said in a BBC interview that the growing numbers of Britons going abroad to die and the manner of their deaths made it more urgent to amend Britain's laws so the process could be controlled. Evidently it's not our inherent right to die they are so concerned about but their ability to run the show.

You remember Jack Kevorkian. Barbara Combs Lee, president of Compassion and Choices (formerly the Hemlock Society USA, a name I liked a lot better) belabors the point that CC is totally opposed to Kevorkian's methods as inhumane and barbaric. Oh yeah! Catch this. Here's how CC wants you to end your life in the absence of state-approved physician assisted suicide. Drink lots of vodka, take a bottle of sleeping pills and then tie a plastic bag around your neck. By the time the air runs out, you'll be so inebriated you won't mind the nettlesome choking.

My mom passed away six years ago; just days short of her 90^th birthday and about six years after she began wishing for death on that June day in 1997 when dad died. They were together 68 years. I watched both of them fade to shells of their former selves. My parents loved each other deeply. A love you don't find in my generation which makes love conditional. Mom took care of dad until his death at 86 in the home in which they lived for 50 years. For four years she fed, bathed and changed him. Despite excruciatingly painful stomach cancer, mom lived on her own in that same house until her final week. They lived full, vibrant, loving lives for some eight decades only to see them abased in their final years. Had they been given the choice, I know what they would have chosen.

Oregon's Death with Dignity law is America's most enlightened assisted suicide ruling and even that 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 and then only after you -- stop me, I can't help myself -- sign your life away. Some Dignity. Frankly, I don't want to get to the point where I'm a month away from death, stuffed with morphine, aides changing my diapers and feeding me gruel and being grateful 51% of some state's voters condescended to allow me to decide my own fate.

Who the fuck ever gave doctors, hospitals, states or the federal government any right to determine anything about your living or dying arrangements to begin with? This is such blatant religious interference in the most personal and private decision a person could make it is laughable that legislatures and courts pretend that it has nothing to do with sectarian screed. Why are religious zealots always so frightened to let us make our own decisions?

Laws against assisted suicide are not stopping courageous seniors from killing themselves you know. They're merely forcing gentle people to use barbaric methods to do the job -- car crashes, bridge jumping, overdoses, guns, razors, ropes, electrocution, asphyxiation and even "death by cop." What kind of malevolent, perverted god-thugs would deny people a dignified, humane death just so they can abide their freaky religious fantasies? (Of course, for those choosing to cling to life at any cost, be it through fear of the unknown or as a result of social and religious myths, they must be provided every possible treatment.)

So, whose are the truly "moral" voices? Those who insist we must suffer for years; must see every dignity evaporate; must expend a lifetime's savings; must lose sight of beautiful and loving lives in paroxysms of pain in order to suit some righteous purpose. Or those who espouse the right to gather family and friends to share in joyous remembrance and a peaceful exit in a dignified and medically appropriate manner? Should people get any less consideration than euthanized animals?

I, like a lot of smart, independent-minded people, want to choose the time I will die if the quality of my life begins to deteriorate. I want to get my life in order not lie in some hospital bed knowing I've burdened my sons with a ton of paperwork and a lifetime of accumulated flotsam. Then I'll treat them, their wives and my grandkids to a few weeks together on some lush tropical island where we can bring closure to my life while I'm still healthy enough to enjoy them and they are not traumatized by a decaying lump in a fetid death bed. I want a pill I can take on my last afternoon alive with which I can drift on to nothingness surrounded by those I love and who love me.

I refuse to give up the most precious right I possess as a human being and an American -- control over my own life and the ability to decide for myself when to end it.