Although there have been many column inches in the press about the value of life and the need to preserve it at all cost, I wasn't finding it at all easy to sympathise with this point of view. I would often wonder what she was feeling – and how someone with such deep dementia could make any kind of sense of the process – and whether, if she had the choice, she would want to keep going, or whether she would prefer not to.
Of course, unless you live in Oregon or go to Switzerland, even if you are capable of making the decision that assisted suicide is just the ticket for you, you are unlikely to take it without implicating a friend or loved one in a criminal act. Even so, 115 people from the UK have already done it (none of their "compassionate assistants" has yet been prosecuted).
One can only feel for Debbie Purdy and her family. She is terminally ill with multiple sclerosis and after losing both High Court and Appeal Court cases, took her case to The House of Lords this week. Lord Falconer and Dignity in Dying supported her in her bid to change the Suicide Act and allow loved ones to accompany the dying abroad. Yet again, they wouldn't agree.
Lots of the oldest old and other older people – often with little or nothing to look forward to – are kept going by our system, which appears to favour quantity over quality. And yet, many of the oldest old die every day at the sometimes careless hands of the NHS whose staff can be ill-equipped, untrained or unable to deliver proper care to them.
Things will have to change as the ageing population demographics take hold. One effect of this may be that we will have to accept the perhaps surprising idea, that living well is ultimately better than dying long.
Image: Gokuraku
Comments