The Case for Assisted Death

Assisted death aims to enable the termination of life for terminally ill people who see no benefit in prolonging their inevitable decline beyond an individually chosen degree of illness.

Doctors would administer the required drug(s) and counsellors would verify that assisted death is indeed the free choice of the terminally ill and dying patient - most likely corroborated by pre-existing legal documentation such as a Will drawn up by a solicitor which clearly declares this desire.

Currently, any kind of assisted death is illegal in the UK, and in most of the world. Some people hope to change this. Others view the idea as abhorrent.

When my father began forgetting simple errands or struggling to find the right words, no-one took any notice. We all do these things from time to time. How often have you been unable to recall an actor's name or the correct title of a favourite piece of music, for example?

Then he began dropping his hot coffee mug in mid-sip, or stumbling over his own feet as he pottered around the house. Similar things happened too regularly to be dismissed as clumsiness or tiredness or mere coincidence. He would leave the house with the intention of walking to the Post Office to collect his pension, or to the village shop for a fresh loaf or some milk, and come back hours later, chilled through and thoroughly bewildered, having forgotten the purpose of his journey. Sometimes a kindly stranger helped him home as he'd forgotten the route, despite having lived in the same place for forty years.

Eventually he was diagnosed with both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. One destroys the body, the other destroys the mind - slowly, mercilessly, relentlessly.

For the last year of my father's life he could do absolutely nothing for himself. He lay in a bed, in a fixed foetal position. He had limited movement in one arm. He lost his ability to chew food, and so had to be spoon-fed fluids and was given sustaining injections directly into his stomach every other day. His body wasted away until his flesh was little more than a paper-thin covering stretched tightly over his sparrow-like bones. His nose had shrunk back to the cartilage. He could not even speak anymore.

The emotional cost to him is something we will never know.

My father died three years ago, on February 1st, 2007.

Currently there is still no cure for Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, or indeed for many other terminal illnesses. The good news is that this will change. It is no longer a case of if these diseases will be cured, but of when. Future sciences will offer far more options than are available right now, and if a person has the foresight to make use of DNA archiving and cryo-preservation in particular (see links below) then these advances may yet be available to them. While this might sound like science-fiction, it's swiftly becoming science fact.

But meanwhile people continue to face lingering and cruel deaths.

The phrase "assisted suicide" is unhelpful and misleading. Supporters of assisted death are not asking for help to commit suicide - they are dying already. They are asking to be allowed to die with dignity, at a time and in a physical, psychological and emotional condition of their own choosing. They are asking for help to enable them to enjoy the remainder of their lives while they can, free of the nightmare of an inescapable and often painful decline. They are asking for the legal right to say "enough," to gently ease into an inescapable death.

The quality of a person's life is something which only each individual can define for themselves, by their own unique standards. I do not accept that anyone, however well-meaning, has the right to over-rule another person's opinions and judgements about the quality of that person's own life.

However, the time may come when an ill person is unable to communicate their wishes with regard to resuscitation or continuing medication or, indeed, to prolonging a decline which can only end in death. This situation may occur due to the progression of a disease or due to an accident.

A properly drawn-up Will which clearly declares the patient's desire for an assisted death should they reach a particular point of no return (to be defined by each individual in their Will, and by a panel of doctors if such a situation should arise) would smooth away any confusion of intent. This would, of course, be drawn-up before the patient's final decline.

My father had "do not resuscitate" on his medical records. His doctor could only give him pain-killers, guessing at how much pain he actually felt as he was unable to communicate even this.

Sitting by my father's bedside, sometimes I would see his eyes change - as if a subtle cloud had washed over them and a strong sense of "him" would return to animate his gaunt features for a few minutes. Then the cloud would pass away again, and he'd be gone, and all that was left for month after month after month was this tortured empty shell of a man.

Animals are shown far greater compassion. Yet we are hampered by the absurd notion that suffering is somehow good for us, as if such slow tortures are a beneficial aspect of human life.

I call it cruelty. I call it cowardice. I consider it barbaric that we, as so-called civilised people, insist upon this pointless prolonging of an inevitable death. Just because our current technology enables a terminally ill person to postpone the (currently) inevitable, does that mean we have the right to deny compassion to those at the receiving end?

All supporters of assisted death are asking for is freedom of choice.