The prospect of Mum and Dad dying is bad enough without being asked to finish them off?

[sweetnsour]

Terry Pratchett and co are calling for assisted suicide to be legalised. I entirely support his right to die in the face of an appalling illness (dementia). But I object to the apparently seamless assumpation the campaigners make that it's the sick person's relations/family who get to 'perform the act' - ie the killing itself, with/without the family GP.

Acquiring the right to die is one thing. But having the right to ask someone else to kill you?

Doing it would be ghastly for the people left behind and, on top of the burden of grief, could damage them very badly.

For the love of God. I can barely entertain the idea of taking a loved one to have this 'done' if it were their wish, but to actually have to do it myself - no f'ing way. Not a cat in hells chance.

I agree I think people SHOULD have the right to end their lives but I do worry about family being pressured into helping (as well as the other way around ill people being pressured into wanting to die). I have watched a number of close family members die for a variety of reasons and although none of them have ever expressed a wish to die I can imagine how hard it would be to actually help them even if it was their wish.

I couldn't do it I don't think.

However, one of my oldest friends died last year from Motor Neurone disease. He would have been completely incapable of ending his own suffering if he had wanted to as he has no use at all of his limbs for the last 6 months and could no longer swallow for the last few weeks. He couldn't even breathe for himself.
I know they discussed assisted suicide but the legal implications were to much of a hurdle to get over for his wife.
I don't like the idea of assisted suicide, I feel there is far too much scope for people to be coerced into it and I also feel it can devalue life itself.
But, my friend wanted to end his suffering and couldn't, Sometimes I think he should have been allowed that choice.
At other times I don't

It's an awfully difficult thing to discuss isn't it.

Having lived with two grandparents who suffered from brain tumours for over a decade I can honestly say that I would like to die rather than be in that position. However, I would expect that to be done in a hospital by a doctor, not a family member. Where does it say that family would be asked to do this can you link to it ?

I don't know. My friend's parents both had very drawn out deaths from lung cancer and, despite being quite anti-assisted suicide at one point, my friend ended up changing her mind and saying watching her parents that ill was heartbreaking and that she wished she could have helped them to end their lives.

I think until you have been there it's hard to say how difficult it would be.

but what is it that makes it hard to help? i'm not being facetious, i just think that though exttremely difficult to do for many, helping another die is entirely unselfish and anything otherwise is only selfish rationalisation and the bigger thing to do is get over that, no?

I agree with DuelingFanjo when my Grandmother was still able to talk she would regularly say "Help me" and "can't go on" it was heartbreaking. She was miserable and needed to be cared for like a baby it took years for her to waste away. In a way it was harder to watch that there was just no other option.

I would have done it if I had to. Anything to stop the awfulness of it all.

I was lucky that I didnt have to in the end.

But YANBU for not wanting to even think about this.

Its not something anyone should HAVE to do.

I think this is an interesting point. I know that my mother would have preferred to have the choice to end her life at a time of her own choosing rather than fading away slowly (and with considerable pain and indignity), but in the end she seemed to decide that the trauma of asking us to assist her would have been too much for us.

Both acts - assisting a suicide, or tolerating your own slow decline - take a lot of generosity and courage.

"helping another die is
entirely unselfish and anything otherwise is only selfish rationalisation and the bigger thing to do is get over that, no?" It could also be argued though that to ask someone else to help you to die is totally selfish. After all, once you're dead you've gone, but they're left behind with the trauma of what they have done. I was traumatised by having to have my dog put to sleep, I can only imagine what having to do the same to a person must do to you.

It could also be argued that if someone knows they have a progressive illness, they should end their life while they're still in a position to be able to do so, rather than placing the burden of that on to someone else.

we don't feel the same about helping people to live do we? i am sure we would be happy for there to be a legal obligation on us to try and save a life if not risking our own if we were absolved of any legal responsibility for the success or otherwise of our attempts...

why not the same for death if that was the wish of the individual - what right do we have to make the choice by withholding support for that choice?

goodness, i feel slightly eager in my thinking, but i totally wouldn't have a problem with assisting suicide i don't think

hobb, the problem is that when you help a loved one to die, you are hastening your own bereavement (and that of others). It must be a traumatic experience, to say the least. Most normal people find the idea of killing someone - however consensually - very difficult anyway; add to that the fact that the moment you've been successful, you're going to be plunged into grief. It's a lot to ask of someone.

My df died of final stages dementia. I don't know if he died of starvation or dehydration or misery but it took a year of agony and I would have ended it for him if I could. So would anyone who cared about him.

I think it would be hard to get over not having one more chat, one more hug or one more day together. When people I am close to have died I have always felt "oh I just want to say one more thing" or just be with them a few minutes more. When it happens naturally its hard to get over but when you actually cause the death i can imagine it may be impossible to get over. It IS selfish to want someone to suffer longer so that you can just have them around a little longer but In my experience thats how I felt!

i agree wannabe, but...if both scenarios are selfish we have to decide whose right is greater, the individual's regarding his own life or those affected. I suppose this would be in the realms of 'the greater good' stuff.

I don't like the idea of being under obligation to suffer a painful end so as to spare the pain of those left behind. I would have preferred to sign up to being born if I'd known that was coming!

I think if one has brought up family and loved and cared for one's friends and family all one's life then after all that we should be able to choose to leave everyone to get on with it at the point where we are too ill to go on.

They'll have to some time - it's not as though prolonging life does away with the inevitable.

I suppose it was different in my case because I was her mum. The lines were clearer.

I am not explaining it well, I am at work.

I didnt do it. But I thought about it very carefully. It was a plan.

I think that most of you would have felt the same as me given the situation. I dont mean that in a nasty way (difficult to get the tone across). Its because you all love your kids so much. You put them first.

Bugger I am making hash of this.

My mother used to talk about the Dylan Thomas poem. 'Do not go gentle into that good night', and say it was magnificently selfish (this was before she got ill). I thought about it a lot when she became terminally ill. It turned out I was as selfish as old Dylan. (Not as drunk though.)

Well I wouldn't do it and I wouldn't ask it. Our souls are our own - what we take on them is our concern but we shouldn't expect others to bear that burden. I include doctors in that. It's pretty shocking actually that we can countenance doctors taking life when we won't?

God, if it was a DC then that is a whole other perspective but one would surely try to find it in oneself to be brave enough to end any suffering? Is it easier to be selfless when it is your child becauese being the mother or father is all about being selfless from the start I wonder?

I'd hope that it would feel as though I was grateful enough for their being that I would be able to spare them any pain or suffering given the choice, as a thanks for entering my life even if only for a short time.

Harrowing for sure but how else could you possibly look at it.

When my mum was dying we were asked by the doctors, "if her heart stops, do you want us to resussitate?" and my dad said "no" because she specifically asked us to make sure she did not to have a long drawn out bed ridden death.

As it was, she became unconcious and died that night.

In a way, we "let" her die. But she had been very ill and wasting away for 2 years, and she had a deep horror of lingering as a "useless lump" as she put it.

It would have been nice if she had been very fit and healthy then one day dropped dead (like my uncle) rather than having a long drawn out and painful wasting away with cancer. But you don't get a choice in your illnesses, and I knew she didn't want to hang on.

I don't think I had the right to prolong her pain just because I was upset about her dying...

At the end of the day if you mum or dad is terminally ill, you have to sit and wait it out and be with them, if they can face the thought of their own death, then you will have to. Don't make your fears their problem in their final days, they have enough to cope with.

I do think that people should have the right to die, but agree that family members shouldn't have to be the ones to do it.

If I was in the position of having to help a loved one in this way, I would want to know it was going to be done properly, by someone who knew what they were doing.

That said, if I was really pushed and had no alternative, yes, I do think I would do it myself. I am certain though that it would be something which would haunt me for the rest of my life though.

My DH1 died from cancer 10 years ago when I was 24, I would have done anything to help him not suffer anymore. Seeing him pissing himself and on all fours on the floor, grey and howling with pain was too much

Until you have walked that road, don't judge.

Restrainedrabbit- what a horrific experience for you and your DH1. I'm so sorry.

Thanks Mishy. His death and illness does and will haunt me for the rest of my life so you can't win really, would helping him to die have haunted me more - who knows?

At the moment there is little we can do, or the medical profession, but doctors can and do hasten death through a variety of methods if needed.