Dying - with or without help

Okay....

I know this is going to cause a bit of a stir (among both of my followers, and anyone who accidentally reads this and thinks 'Just for Fun' is a truthful headline), but I have for a long time believed that when my time comes, I have every right to decide when, where, how, and with whom I end my life.

I think, looking back, that I have held that belief for something like 35 - 40 years. 

And then, 10 or 12 years ago, I discovered an author name Terry Pratchett, who writes the most fantastic novels about a place called Discworld. I'm not going to try and tell you about the stories, because that would be like a frog trying to describe the sensations involved in skydiving naked strapped to Angelina Jolie.

But here's the thing about Terry - he was diagnosed three years ago with a rare form of Alzheimer's disease. It's incurable, physically painless, and will slowly rob him of everything that makes him Terry Pratchett. It will reduce him to the status of vegetable, but without the usefulness even of a courgette.

Terry has become a supporter of the charity Dignity in Dying, which advocates a form of suicide called 'assisted death', most famously sponsored by the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, where assisted death is legal (as it is in Belgium, and in the states of Oregon and Washington in the US).

Please understand, we are not talking about euthanasia. Nobody gets to kill anyone else. No-one ends up dead unless they really, really want to. Dignitas employs, I imagine, an army of lawyers to ensure they are not accused (well, not successfully anyway) of killing anyone, and several doctors and psychiatrists to ensure that the people who go there wanting to die, really are sincere in their desire, aware of the consequences, not influenced by greedy and/or selfish family members, and mentally capable of understanding what they want to do. They also have to be physically capable of drinking the cocktail of barbiturates that put them, relatively painlessly, to death.

(If you want to know more about the details, google 'Dignitas' - its not a secret organisation).

The trouble is, if you leave it too long, especially with something like Alzheimers, you will be judged incapable of making the decision, and thus forced to wallow in your own pain and excrement until you clog it.

The BBC recently showed a program about Terry's research into  Dignitas, and showed the assisted death of a 71-year-old, Peter, suffering from Motor Neurone Disease. He knew his natural death would be painful, messy, undignified, and a huge burden on his family, so he decided to end his life before all that happened.

The program followed his progress through the fact-finding, the decision-making process, the discussion's with his wife, and his journey to Switzerland. It also covered his last moments after drinking the poison, and his eventual death.

Unfortunately, because assisted death is illegal in Britain, he had to go to Switzerland. In order to be physically able to make the journey, he had to decide to die much earlier than if he had been able to do it here in the UK.

There is much bullshit and misconception in the press at the moment about Peter's death. 

In his dying moments he asked for water, and the Dignitas employee overseeing his passing refused it. Predictably the British press has accused her, in near rabidly-racist language [the Teutonic executioner is one phrase I've heard used] of cruelty. But a little research shows that had he had a drink at that stage, two things could have happened: he could have choked and drowned, as his body was already shutting down at this stage, and his swallow-reflex may already have failed; or the water could have diluted the poison, preventing it from killing him, but destroying his stomach lining, liver and bowel. There was much propaganda of this type - twisting and spinning the facts to make for good headlines.

And of course, equally predictably, the do-gooders, liberals, left wing pinko pillocks and plain stupid buggers have been out in force, whinging that the program didn't provide a balanced view. Why should it. It wasn't a program exploring the various points of view about assisted dying - it was a program about Terry Pratchett's investigation into assisted dying. There was nothing sinister about the fact that it only portrayed one viewpoint - that's just the only viewpoint Terry has!

So what is the truth?

The European Bill of Rights gives every citizen the right of self-determination - you have the absolute right to decide when and how you die.

It gives everyone the protection of not being the subject of legalised euthanasia - at no point does anyone ever have the right to terminate someone else's life.

It gives us all the protection that no-one is allowed to 'facilitate' the death of another person.

Dignitas abides by the letter of the law, even to the point of saying words to the effect that 'if you drink that you will die - do you understand' just before you pick up the glass and drink.

The point about this little rant is that the only person who knows how much you are suffering, is you.

The only person who is entitled to a point of view about how and when you die, is you.

The only person with the absolute right to terminate your life, is you.

Don't let the self-centred, egotistical bastards in Westminster take away that right - because they will, if they think they can!

If you are ever going to stand up for your rights - that is the one to stand up for.

PS How can it be legal to pull the plug on someone's life support machine when they are unable to say whether that's what they want or not, and yet illegal to inject that same person with an overdose of barbiturates to end their suffering?

Answers on a postcard, please, or leave a comment.

In the meantime, I'm off to bed in the hope that when I get up tomorrow at 6.30, I might actually be awake!

Toodle-pip, constant reader...