I’m not a fan of the suicide option. People very close to me have chosen it, or come close to using it, and the anger in me about their ‘desertion’ still burns in some hidden corner of my soul.
But they were young and healthy and left behind devastated families.
So it came as a surprise to me to realize that if there was going to be a course for a ‘suicide assistant’, I’d seriously think about enrolling for it and entering what could be a whole new and very different career.
A Dutch citizens’ initiative Out of Free Will is lobbying to change the legislation on assisted suicide in the Netherlands, already considered one of the most liberal in the world. But the fact is that since 2001, you are entitled to euthanasia only if you can prove you’re experiencing ‘hopeless and unbearable suffering’. But there is no provision for the elderly who have simply had enough of life, and want to get to the end destination in their own time.If this lobby group gets its way – and I’m planting my flag firmly in its backyard here and hoping it will - assisted suicide for people over 70 may well be in place by the time I’m old enough to be grateful for such a service.
I was horrified to learn that even here in this civilized little piece of the planet, there are about 400 elderly people every year who kill themselves - usually violently. I don’t want that to be the final option for my loved ones or for myself.
“I don’t want to outlive myself” says legal scholar Eugene Sutorius.
Here, here.
I know that 70 is the new 60. My energetic 79-year-old mother is proof of that. And if I can walk 10 kilometres, hold a coherent conversation and be able to cook big curry dinners for my friends when I’m 70, then I won’t be in a rush to demand this service by any means.
There will be the inevitable misinterpretations from the right-wingers who will caw and boo at this proposal. If you’re already bristling at the thought of the Dutch treating their venerable elderly so callously, please, stop. And just note that if the legislation does change, it won’t mean that the minute someone hits 70 they’re going to be dragged off to the gas chambers.
I earned my way through university working in an old people’s home, and so witnessed the many different ways that the elderly and the infirm can leave this world. I have seen wonderful people become cantankerous and spiteful to those closest to them; I once had a lovely old fellow aged 108, who I’d known since he was a sprightly 102, plead with me, tears running down his cheeks to “help me; end this.” That’s no job for a terrified 20-year-old, but it would be good if there was someone around able and trained to comply with such a plea.
If a course for a Completed Life Certificate, is ultimately made available, then I can think of no more meaningful vocation than helping provide someone with an easy and painless ‘departure’ surrounded by the people they love.
Surely each and every one of us deserves that last dignity.
on Feb 10th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
An assisted end to life may be opted for if all options to live is exhausted and the person who want to go out of life feels it without an iota of doubt in heart as that is the right choice. To make it more dignified it would be good to avoid the word suicide as there is a stigma attached to suicide as being cowardly. It would be nice to avoid the word euthanasia too as it hints of killing. So it must be neither suicide nor killing. It should be done with a feeling of peace; the liberation of the soul from untoward suffering; leaving the body to unite with the Divine. To have such a feeling of goodness the person willing to go out of life that way has to feel satiated with life and feel peaceful and happy instead of hopeless and guilty. Can anyone be ever satiated with life?!!!. I feel, very few can go out in peace and joy having enjoyed life and satiated. Or else,Alas, we may see a lot of assisted suicide or euthanasia the assisted killing! So if such a legislation work out to be a reality then a “Suicide Assistant” may be a dignified profession for many to chose from. We could call them in a dignified way “Nirvana Assistants”
on Feb 11th, 2010 at 9:30 am
I think if there is a support for ‘ right to life’ there should be spport for’right to die’. It is rather peculiar that we as human beings are acutely aware of our mortality yet not many even at my ripe old age are prepared to consider that they have earned the right to die as and when they wish to die.
One doesnt have to be disabled, depressed, dependent, or senile to have earned this right to die.Perhaps certain amount of counselling is required before administering and favouring ‘euthenisia’ for such individuals.
As individuals in-charge of our faculties ,we can choose to put an end to our life, without others having to stigmatise it as “suicide”. I am rather amused that now there is a training required to assist people to end their life.
But personally, I am also aware that with this death-by-choice one should not emotionally deprive the others of right to mourn which need not be accompanied by ‘blaming’.
I rather like Dev Nayan’s spin on suicide assistant by giving them a new title of nirvana assistants.