I chose life over death

15/04/2008

Sarah Wootton of the misnamed group Dignity in Dying (formerly, and more honestly, known as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) makes the case for what she calls “assisted dying.”  She argues that any law allowing it should have so-called safeguards and “strict criteria” which she says will guarantee “protection of the public as a whole.”  

It would not have protected me twenty years ago when I wanted to die.

I have several disabling conditions including spina bifida, hydrocephalus, emphysema and osteoporosis, and I use a wheelchair full time.  I experience severe pain on a daily basis, and even morphine does not always relieve it adequately.  When the pain is at its worst I cannot move, speak or think.  My condition is gradually getting worse.

Twenty years ago, when doctors thought I didn't have long left to live, I decided I wanted to die.  It was a settled and determined wish that lasted over 10 years.  For the first five of those years I several times seriously attempted to end my life.  I was saved only because friends discovered me in time and had me taken to hospital, where I was treated against my will.

Had the sort of law for which Sarah Wootton is campaigning then been in place, I would have requested what she calls "assisted dying”.  Under the supposedly "strict criteria” she cites – terminal illness, mental competence, unbearable suffering  -  I would have qualified for it. Under her proposed rules, the doctors’ hands would have been tied, and they could not have treated me against my will.  I would have been killed because death was apparently my choice.

Had this happened, I would have missed some of the best years of my life, and no one would ever have known that the future held good things for me, and that the doctors were wrong in thinking I didn't have long to live.

Ms Wootton apparently sees only two possible groups of people; those who want to die and those who don't.  But life isn't that straightforward in reality, and people not infrequently change their minds.   I am not the only vulnerable person who once wanted to die, and is now glad that the law prevented them from being assisted in bringing it about.  

I was lucky to have friends who over time helped me value my life and realise that  suffering did not alter my infinite human value, but it still took me over 10 years to change my mind about wanting to die.  There would not, and could not, be any protection in Ms. Wootton’s proposals for those like me.  

“Dignity in Dying” presents its case for euthanasia as being simply “options” and “choices.” But it is not as simple as that. Once some killing is allowed it will inevitably be extended.  This has already happened in Holland, where Government reports have shown that elderly patients fear that doctors will “euthanase” them against their will.  As in Holland, elderly people here will feel obliged to opt for euthanasia in order not to feel a burden on their families or the health system.  And what of those whose families push them into it to hasten their own inheritance?

Once some killing is allowed, there is no protection for any suffering person, let alone “the public as a whole” as Ms Wootton claims.  The very title of her organisation sends out a message that suffering people like me achieve “dignity” only in death.

I suggest however that what we really need is not assisted death, but assistance and encouragement to live with dignity until we die naturally.