Choosing premature death

Let’s talk about dying. Death. The end. The final decision.

I will not mention a certain film about dying with Alzheimer’s, recently aired.

No, I want to write about assisted suicide, or assisted dying, euthanasia…

I watched the recent BBC film made by Liz Carr about the subject, and I was, well, impressed.

And horrified.

The Liz Carr film was about disability and assisted dying. In particular she was looking at how it could be controlled in the future if parliament passed a law allowing it.

Canada has legally assisted dying. Numbers euthanased have grown hugely to several thousands a year since it was introduced around 2010 (I forget exactly when).

Originally for the terminally ill in the last 6 months of life, it now extends to those in severe pain or suffering who choose that they would prefer to die.

And their law is being extended down to age 10 apparently.

Canadaks situation fills me with enormous worry. While a noble Lord former Lord Justice said he was certain that a new UK law could be limited permanently to terminal illness, Canada shows that once passed there is no shutting of the stable door.

In Canada, Liz Carr might well have chosen euthanasia when she was a child, following diagnosis and physical changes caused by disease and treatments. She said at the time she did wish she were dead.

But she has had, by her own admission, a great life, and is an actor, standup comic, campaigner, and just a person enjoying living.

The key underlying theme was/is that disability is seen in society as abnormal, intolerable and therefore better off dead. We who have a physically obvious disability, who look different from the norm, are singled out as suffering, as not living worthwhile lives.

And it has always been thus. Witness Germany post first world war.

We regard ourselves as living in a civilised society, but some of us think it’s better that a disabled person should die rather than be supported to live a good life. (A good life in their view, no-one else’s.)

It’s cheaper.

It’s easier.

It’s ‘the right thing to do’, to relieve suffering.

You need to understand a person, to learn how they feel, what makes them happy and valued, before you can make any judgement about their life being worthwhile.

And you shouldn’t ever do that. It is THEIR life, not what you see and judge.

We should not patronise people who are less fortunate, whether in poverty or sickness. We should, rather, be sympathetic and support them. Provide what they need to live well.

Assisted suicide may be viewed as something that society ought to have on offer for those who choose it. And I have sympathy with this.

People in severe pain which cannot be controlled (very few I think), who are known to be terminally ill and near death…why should we not have the death option for them?

For those who, as Carr heard, need to be in total control of their lives, in the terminal, painful circumstances perhaps there should be the death option.

But I am convinced that once passed, such a law will be extended and exploited so that people will die before they are in a position to know whether they can live a good life. Or well before they reach the painful end stage, for fear of losing capacity to make their choice.

Perhaps, in years to come, people who are homeless and in despair, perhaps with mental illness health, will be made eligible to choose death. And perhaps they will be made to feel they are a burden, that they are not worth supporting…

Nope. In a social democracy, which of course we may no longer be, we should be maintaining the services that support everyone to live, no matter their circumstances.

We should be paying higher taxes that help level education, opportunity, healthcare, and support.

It is our neoliberal, post 60s, profit driven, individually focused ‘society’, where inequality is wider than ever, that is leading us down the slippery path that could lead to assisted dying.

So I side with Liz Carr on this.

Let us all be human and humane, sympathetic and empathic, kind and friendly, to everyone. Not just those of us who look perfectly formed. Because none of us is.