Dear Journal,
I am not one to write about death or even wonder about it so much. Anyone who knows me know that the few times I talk about death is when I am asked what I want my entire life to look like. In response to that question, my answer is always; I want to travel the world, work in different countries have a small family and die in my sleep at a good age before I become a burden to my family.
Having spoken to a lot of people, I realised that most people would love to die when they are asleep but that rarely is the case. Battles with Cancer, Alzheimer’s and loads more make it really difficult to have a painless transition. When a person goes to the doctor’s office and is found to be terminally ill, do the person have the right to end their life immediately instead of prolonging the inevitable?
I was reading the Evening Standard when an article by Sam Leith (2015) caught my eye. He spoke of the law in Britain that prevents people from getting help to die. I know this sounds absurd but he puts up a good case. Since our bodies are our own and we all have the right to do whatever we please with it as gay and women rights activists would agree, why is it anyone’s business when you choose to end it? Why should there actually be a law preventing you from ending your own life?
Critics have said this would normalise the act of suicide and more people would turn to it as a way out of difficult times. That surely doesn’t make any sense I must say. This is like saying because homosexuality is now legal, young people will turn gay. We can see that is not the case at this time as we still have lots of teenagers that still prefer their heterosexual existence.
Sometime this year, an Assisted Dying Bill will be discussed in the British Parliament. The bill according to Leith (2015) will state that mentally sound adults with less than 6 months to live and who have been assessed by two doctors and a High Court judge can choose to die on their terms.
After reading this article, I remembered clearly a case of a doctor who stated that if she ever had to be placed on life support, she wanted her family to pull the plug. She thought that way, her family can start to come to terms with the grief instead of hanging in vain to the hope that she might recover.
I have never had a relative who suffered from cancer but I’ve heard some of them say that they wish this would end really soon. This is their way of resigning themselves to their fate but they wish more than anything that they have a chance to end the pain a lot sooner than the time they’ve been given.
As a Christian, I struggle with the idea of ending one’s own life. I believe in miracles and healing. I actually think in that position, I would hold on until the end even though God chooses not to heal me. But then, that is my faith and my choice. Would it be fair to judge other people by my own standards now? I don’t think so.
Please feel free to contribute to this as I always appreciate comments. If you’re in a situation as described above, (terminally ill) what would you do?
XX
Sharon
