IT'S TIME FOR SOME BRITISH DIGNITAS
About three years or so ago, when I read that the 104 year old Botanist and Ecologist Dr David Goodall had decided to end his own life at the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland I couldn’t help thinking that if I wanted to call it a day for whatever reason, I’d want to end it all quietly and painlessly.
If you become a member of Dignitas (and it isn’t difficult to do this), you could go there and, providing you fulfil all the legal requirements, end your own life by self poisoning. It sounds very easy and certain, but really.... must somebody travel all the way to Switzerland to do it? Think of all the fuss. Having to say goodbye to relatives before leaving, then travelling across half of Europe (or in Dr Goodall’s case, from Australia). Then comes all the counselling and form filling and proving that you’re compus mentis enough to make the decision. You would then have to sign the legal disclaimer before paying the agreed amount. This would have to be coughed up in Swiss Francs, or I imagine they might find small gold bars acceptable, because nobody does cheques anymore.
I remember my paternal grandmother’s vehement determination that “I aint going into no hospital or old people’s place. I’m staying right here in me own ‘ome.” I could see what she meant. If my last days of life come with the prospect of being wired up to monitors and plugged full of tubes, I’d want to stay at home too and to hell with it. At least I’d die in my own bed.
Grandma got her wish and she left the world peacefully in her sleep, surrounded by her family. She ceased upon the midnight with no pain, which was a far better way to go than weeping in loneliness in the middle of an understaffed NHS night shift, to be discovered in the morning, stiff and cold.
My grandma left this world among familiar things, and with the people who loved her. Grandma did it right.
But even a Dignitas clinic has its drawbacks. You drink the concoction they give you that first sends you into a warm, pleasant sleep, and then stops your heart. That’s alright for you, and your family have the comfort of knowing that you are no longer suffering. But after that’s over, it becomes much harder for your relatives. As you slowly slip away, they can hold your hand and perhaps allow themselves a tear or two, but afterwards they can only hang around, waiting to collect the death certificate before they head off on the long trip back to Heathrow, or Perth, or wherever.
What I would like, should I ever be in such a terrible situation that living on was unbearable, is my own domestic Dignitas, even if it is only a bottle of vodka and somebody who is willing to hold the pillow down firmly for as long as it takes. But even in the moral vacuum that Britain is turning into, that's unlikely to be an option.
It is possible to make an LPA, or Lasting Power of Attorney, nominating somebody, possibly my wife or daughter, to not only speak for me, but AS me, should I get to the stage where I stare vacantly into the distance and no longer recognise my own loved ones any more.
What is the most worrisome part of all this is Parliament, and much of the medical profession’s hesitancy to discuss the subject of assisted suicide. I understand the moral and ethical arguments, but for better or worse, doctors make life and death decisions on a daily basis. Which patient will get the life-saving organ and which one won’t? Who will be turned down for cancer treatment drugs because they live in the wrong postcode, or who will be refused life saving surgery simply because they smoke / are obese / take drugs and are therefore considered to only have themselves to blame. When doctors play God every working day of their lives, they can’t fall back on the Hippocratic Oath when it suits them.
There is no doubt that some elderly people may feel they have become a burden on their family and rather than having a wish to die, instead begin to think (or are subtly persuaded) that they have a duty to die. That sort of situation must, quite rightly, be guarded against.
How to make sure that cynical, inheritance-motivated relatives don’t exploit a vulnerable, sick or elderly relative would be the hardest part of any legislation, but the Swiss seem to have found a system of checks and controls that does the trick, and to the best of my knowledge this civilised, morally sound and overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country doesn’t seem to be suffering from any crisis of conscience over its decision to allow “death with dignity.” Surely such a system, with any adjustments necessary to fit our legal framework, could be made to work here, too.
Could I help any of my loved ones to die? I don’t think so. I couldn't be a party to the act itself, even though I see that there is a case for allowing this option. After all, just because I couldn't do it myself, doesn't mean I think it shouldn't be done at all. Rather, I would do anything I could to help them live, although if things were the other way round, I’d hope that somebody would finish me off. Am I selfish? Maybe I am, but doesn’t that just go to illustrate the terrible dilemma of it all…?
But none of that detracts from the need for a legal option to be available for those who are at the end of their tether and feel they would be able to make the final step. Such a choice is not available in this country and in my opinion it’s about time it was. People in Britain who truly and genuinely want to die for sound and explainable reasons should be allowed to do so in their own homes, or at the very least, in their own country.
Switzerland is too far from home to go to die.
I just hope I don't get that severe reaction again later that I had last time, but the doctor told me it might happen.
