Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge A suicide note that should be read by everyone

Gillian Bennett's thoughtful commentary on her approach to life and death should be required reading.

An excellent lead-in is A suicide note that should be read by everyone prior to turning to her farewell missive, Goodbye & Good Luck!

The conversation must continue.

So true. But unfortunately so many appear to be so afraid of certain end-of-life conditions like Bennett's (if they consider them at all), that they reflexively and often aggressively rail against choices like hers. Such choices are denied in part because of the misbegotten notion that allowing them equals imposing them on everyone. Alternatively because tenets that deny the option makes those so restrained deny it to all as if they have to remove any and all temptation to themselves. Never mind everyone else, of course. In this respect freedom, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Of course, these are the same arguments as are being used in a great variety of behavior that isn't yet considered mainstream. Talking about cans of worms...

I admire, respect, and approve of her decision to die with dignity, little suffering, and to retain control of her own body. The will to live is very strong in all of us but we must come to the realization that death is inevitable (something that, I suspect, most of us either deny or put aside). The medical profession wants to postpone the inevitable for as long as possible (that's why those people entered the profession, after all) but doctors aren't God.

It really bothers me that too many states (and countries, no doubt) make assisted suicide illegal. Ending one's life is a very personal decision and nobody's business except that of the individual. What's the point of living a life as a mental or physical vegetable, or undergoing unbearable pain and suffering while waiting for the relief of death?

An interesting sidelight —

A Globe and Mail poll associated with the article asks: Are you in favor of assisted suicide?
The responses (7,307 votes) are: Yes 79%, No 13%, Unsure 8% (Aug 23, 0745EDT)
The responses (10,392 votes) are: Yes 79%, No 13%, Unsure 8% (Aug 24, 0545EDT)

Despite public and medical professionals' concern the reigning political establishment refuses to sanction or even enter debate on the subject.

But where there's a will, there's a way.
For example,"suicide tourism" to Switzerland has doubled over the past few years, as a brief search of media content in the USA and Canada will attest.
Moreover there are a number of organizations out there which can assist with assisted suicide via counseling of one form or another. Unfortunately, the venerable Hemlock Society croaked about a decade ago due to administrative infighting.

And the beat goes on ....

IMHO, Jack Kevorkian should have received a medal instead of a prison sentence.

Indeed. He is honored by all those whose lives (and deaths) he touched and perhaps that's the finest "medal" of all.

I wonder... The legal state of self-determined "Death With Dignity", were it not for the Church.

I assume that you mean the Catholic Church. I have no objection to the Catholic Church's opposition to suicide, but I do object if they try to foist their beliefs on everyone else. Don't get me started on abortion and birth control...

In this case, I was referring to all organized churches.

Your apparent assumption that all cultures, faiths, denominations, churches, and faithful of any stripe have a uniform or consistent belief structure is almost by definition untrue. The Roman Catholic Church (note that is Church with a capital "C") comes closer than most because their strict hierarchical governance, but by the time the rules get down to the individual parish or priest things start to vary all over the place. I know of a large Parish that was instructed by the Vatican to cease their practice of having alter girls as well as boys serve at worship. The next Sunday they had "alter persons" assisting with the mass and to no one's great surprise some of them were female. As the saying goes, "the devil is in the details".

You are entitled to your opinion of "all organized churches" but be aware that on any given topic nearly every organized religious group will have almost as many opinions and interpretations as there are adherents. Unfortunately the extreme opinions are the ones that make the best 10 second photo ops on the evening news and too often shape the opinions of the uninformed. The views of the vast majority are typically not that interesting. The closest any of us comes to any absolute issue of faith is our shared guilt in the original sin — wanting to be God and calling the shots our way.

Euthanasia appropriate only ‘after all other reasonable options are exhausted’ according to the new president of the Canadian Medical Association, who seems to have missed the central argument in the debate, namely free and rational choice.

I agree with you; free and rational choice, including the free and rational choice to decide to end one's life, is absolutely a basic human right.

I do see the problem they're trying to avoid though. Caregiver burnout is a real thing. I've seen it happens; one of my girlfriends has an inlaw who's suffered a massive, debilitating stroke, and another has a parent who's lost both legs to diabetes. Caring for a disabled person is difficult and emotionally exhausting.

If easy access to assisted suicide were the norm, I can see exhausted, overtaxed caregivers encouraging the people they're caring for to take that option. Perhaps not even consciously, and not with malicious intent, but I can see the potential for a subtle, long-term, pervasive pressure in that direction, even if it isn't what the disabled person wanted. And guilt over being a burden to caregivers can be a powerful thing.

I can understand the desire to create a regulatory mechanism that helps buffer against the corrosive effects of long-term disability and the potential for emotional pressure toward suicide. I'm not sure this is the right answer, but I understand the problem.

I'm certainly not any kind of expert in psychology but I assume the guilt of the caregiver, later having realized what they may have done, would create a whole other set of problems.

Caregiver burnout is a well documented syndrome as is the guilt feelings of the one being cared for. One that too often ends badly one way or another. This is probably more true in our western cultures where we have so often migrated far from family and friends that might share in that caregiving in other cultures. There is a growing number of church related and non-church related groups providing respite care for burned out caregivers and for the person being cared for. Often these groups work in cooperation with hospice.

CBC Radio is rebroadcasting a half-hour documentary, Death and the Law in Oregon, from October 2013 on Oregon's Death with Dignity law, now some 15 years old. The episode can be found at
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2014/08/28/physician-assisted-death-in-oregon/

Even though juridicomedical issues are increasingly in the forefront of the debate, opinions such as those in Assisted suicide isn’t the only dignified way to go are becoming evermore frequent.

The opiner behind that article is clearly biased in ways he disclaims:
"... if a fatal diagnosis routinely becomes an invitation to assisted suicide, we are devaluing one of the most important parts of life – its ending ... you don’t have to be religious to feel that the dying ... pass on meaningful lessons to the living ... It’s raw and painful and its meaning is not always immediately apparent. But as humbling as a disease can be, it is never undignified to stick it out."

While I cannot claim to have "hastened" anyone's death — my parents' plaints when I was a teenager notwithstanding — in my professional capacity I have indeed humanely assisted in the demise of many of my patients when the conditions rationally called for euthanasia and such was in accord with their guardians' wishes. Almost invariably my clients have been appreciative for my helping their loved ones cross the Rainbow Bridge and many have expressed the sentiment that they wished such service had been available for Grampa.

My best friend, in his sixth and seventh decades, on more than one occasion commented that he was prepared to take his own life should circumstances, particularly dementia, rob him of himself. He had in fact assembled the necessary equipment for a painless carbon monoxide death. To his misfortune he developed a rapidly progressive dementia which precluded his implementing his plan. Fortunately for him he no longer has to (or can even) worry about that; unfortunately for his family the burden is now theirs.

...wow. On a scale of one to even, I totally can't.

This might be one of the most objectifying arguments I've ever heard. The wishes of the person dying don't matter, what matters is the dying person's value as an object lesson to others.

Add this to that: The Last Day of Her Life, Sandy Bem's end-of-life odyssey.