Anyone watching "Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die"

[MindyMacready]

Uncomfortable viewing.

I see your point, but the doctor in this programme had to make at least 2 assessments of these people and hear it from themselves that they wished to die.

So disabled or not, surely it couldn't happen if they were not deemed fit to make the decision for themselves. They do not act on the say so of anyone else.

I think an additional issue that should be considered is the (misfelt) guilt a seriously ill patient often has to cope with. My sister was very ill. In the end she died in an immense amount of pain. I remember standing in a corridor listening to her being changed. I will never forget her screams echoing along the otherwise silent corridor at three in the morning. She knew that this would probably happen. But she did not want to die.

However, had assisted suicide been an option she might have felt that the pressure she was placing her parents, myself, and her brother under was so great that she should die for our sakes. It goes without saying this is not how we felt.

This doesn't mean that assisted suicide is wrong - but I do think that we must make absolutely sure that people do not start feeling pressure to go down that route.

But when you are depressed you are likely to say you want to die, and we're more likely to bedepressed because we're treated like shit, frankly. So we are more likely to be suicidal, because disabled people are oppressed in this society.

yes i do see what you mean alice, but surely there could be a way that maybe a couple of professionals would be able to assess and decide wther this is depression, looking at medical history, medication etc.

I am on the fence about the whole thing tbh, but certainly feel that I should not prevent a terminally ill person from relieving themselves from pain, and perhaps a terrible quality of life, should that be their choice. I am not walking in their shoes.

From my experience of the clinic, once the application is filled in, the staff examine it and check that the applicant has been offerred the appropriate treatment and/or palliative care, and that the condition is as serious as the patient understands it to be. They also ask for a character statement, with details of the person's home life, family, employment etc so that they know if the person has factors other than their illness that might be causing them to consider suicide, and which could be addressed in other ways. If any care that should have been offerred hasn't been, they will discuss alternative care plans with the person. It's made very clear during the process that everyone at the clinic will be very happy if you change your mind and decide to go home.

I think that assisted suicide is probably only for a minority of people - most people would prefer effective palliative care, and I think it's appalling that not everyone has access to that, but some people will still want the option of a gentle painless death at the time they choose. In my family at the moment as well as my grandmother who chose assisted suicide in the very last stages of cancer, I have two other relatives who are living with degenerative illnesses which will eventually prove fatal. One of them needs a lot of care which is provided by other relatives. Until I read this thread, I wouldn't have even considered that assissted suicide would be an option for my other two relatives because they don't have the slightest interest in dying. I'm finding it very distressing that only one sort of autonomous choice is deemed acceptable for ill or disabled people, ehether that choice is to live or to die.

And I can't help contrasting my grandmother's happy final weeks and gentle death with that of someone else I know with the same illness who discharged himself from hospital, checked into a hotel and took an overdose of paracetamol without saying goodbye to his loved ones.

"Are there any disabled people on here who see right to die as a priority?"

Yes.

"We have to be careful that by allowing one section of society to choose their own death we are not neglecting the needs of another section of society who want to live their lives to the full."

I agree totally. And do not understand anyone who does not.

I think people should have the chance to decide when they feel their life is no longer worth living. It should never be the choice of anyone else, in either direction.

If my life reaches a point where I feel I am able to do so little that I do not feel like my life is not worth living, I would like to know that I can rest. And know that I have not made family deal with taking me to another country, and/or worrying about the legal ramifications. I also want the option to die in familiar surroundings, not in another country.

I also want to know that if I choose to keep living while my body and/or mind are struggling, that there will be support and safety.

In the current system I can only get access to the latter. Allowing assisted suicide would not take away that option, it would just add a new one.

Anyway, the exact circumstances are to some extent irrelevant to my main point which is that AS is being debated in the absence of anything else, frankly it seems it's the only time disabled people are trusted and believed. You don't get as many challenges to AS as to DLA.

I am sorry alice, i do not understand your post

I think one of the problems is that assisted suicide appears an easy (lesser of two evils), peaceful and dignified way out of suffering but no one really knows for sure whether we continue to perceive things long after this body ceases to contain life so a piece of the puzzle is missing to make an informed decision.

I must admit-like everyone on this thread I was crying when his wife watched him go and I was very disturbed by the last minute experience the man seemed to have, it was sad because at the table when his wife was offering him chocolates, they still had magic moments together, could still chat and comfort each other, I know that this would have eventually degenerated but it was so sad, I think the wife would have wanted the so called 'burden'.

I am from the Netherlands. I have seen two people who were dear to me die of cancer. Both of them started the process of requesting euthanasia before they were so sick they could not. Neither of them went through with it in the end and they both passed away as their illness took its course. They both said that they felt better knowing the provision was in place, so that if they felt they could no longer cope, they didn't have to. It seemed to give both of them a great deal of peace.

Because of that alone, I think euthanasia should not be illegal. There should be very careful safeguards in place to protect the vulnerable, and there needs to be far better end-of-life care available so that no one ever need feel that they are a burden. I am appalled at anyone who would tell a disabled person they are better off dead and no government, doctor, or individual should ever be given the right to decide someone should die when they themselves do not independently and genuinely wish it. But to deny sane, suffering adults the right to express a wish to die and go through with this out of fear of the subject - that strikes me as unbelievably and unnecessarily cruel.

I watched this and cried through it, as did DH. (His first wife died horribly of non-specific primary cancer - one day she was fine, the next unable to breathe, eat or move and in constant pain for the seven weeks it took for her to die - she asked on day two to be allowed to die and was refused :( ).

What I know from personal experience is that in some senses, in this country we DO have assisted dying for those with terminal illnesses. I nursed my grandmother and was taken aside by the nurses who were caring for my GM (at home - we were lucky) and told: 'we give you a morphine pump, if you go above this dose, your grandmother will stop breathing and she will die within a few minutes. We will not monitor how much is used.' I was then left with her overnight, together with other relatives. We could easily have upped the dose enough to go beyond keeping her out of pain.

I have also heard from another friend who had the same experience in another part of the country.

I agree with the protection issues, but I thought the point made in the debate that when you have a terminal illness, you ARE dying and it's just a question of when (and how much you have to suffer first.)

I don't agree with AD for people with mental illness or for disability which won't kill you in the short term (ie within a year - otherwise it may perhaps be considered a terminal illness).

I think what we need though is a rethink of end of life care. Hospice availability should be a default not an exception - how can it be that when people are in the worst place in their life, they have to fight for access to hospices or to die at home? Surely it can't be that expensive to allow people to die how they choose? Why is this not a part of the national health service in the same way births are? Death is as much part of being human as life.

There are cases in the UK where families and or doctors have withdrawn food and water to seriously ill people. They are kept pain free and are allowed to die.

Question: What is the difference between witholding food and water to hasten the dying process and actively providing the means to die?

Often, the former have not been able to voice a request to die at all but the decision has been made based on quality of life.....

Agree that it should not be illegal, in fact I believe the right to die should be a basic human right. I have three elderly relatives who are over 87, 93 and 95. Each wishes every night that they might not awake the following day. Sometimes quality of life has gone and death is a welcome relief.
I don't wish them dead but I wish they could fulfil their own wishes.

Why should people not be allowed to chose the time and manner of their own death if they wish? Obviously there need to be rigorous safeguards in place to protect the vulnerable but I do think it should not be illegal.

What is right for you is not necessarily right for someone else. What is OK for you may be intolerable for someone else.

Is it so different from a Do Not Resuscitate wish?

If you haven't it's worth watching Terry Pratchetts Richard Dimbleby 2010 Lecture "Shaking Hands with Death" (you tube link ) where, through his friend Tony Robinson he sets out his reasons for considering assisted death and how he thinks it could be managed so that people wouldn't be coerced. He suggested (from memory) a Doctor, Lawyer, Psychologist and I think two or three peers should look thoroughly into each case.

I believe that there must be some way of having people jump through enough hoops in such a way to ensure that people who really want to can and those who are being coerced can be protected because their case would be rigourously examined.

Maybe I am naive but I was impressed by the Doctor on last nights programme and debate.

This is something that is close to my heart. My mum, who is only 71, has a rare form of rapid onset dementia. It means that she is no longer the vibrant, sophisticated, intelligent woman that she used to be, The nature of the disease (related to a brain injury) means that is incapable of "engaging" with life and of feeling any emotion. It is not a case of the quality of her care - it is a function of the type of dementia. The only emotion she does seem to feel is a sadness/annoyance/resentment that she is no longer able to stay at home - and she expresses a sort of surprise/curiosity when you try to explain that dad just couldn't cope with her at home.

She would have needed round the clock nursing care - and even then would have still demanded that my dad was there all the time with her. So two lieves would have been destroyed.

The fact that she is still trying to walk (her brain can't remember how to balance, so she falls frequently and has an almost permanent black eye/stitch in her chin/bruising) is testament to her willpower.

There is no quality of life. She really is in "God's Waiting Room" with us watching as she continues to decline. Every so often you see glimpses of the woman she used to be - very faint now (dh can always tell when she is "better" as I come home from seeing her more not less upset). This is something that she would have absolutely hated.

But even if she had produced a "living will", it would be inadmissable as she no longer has the mental capacity to activate it. The best my dad can do is to have DNR on her notes.

I hate to stay it but I am looking forward to the day when she will be at peace.

Prettybird - how awful. Just wanted to give you my sympathy. My mum died with Alzheimers at 74. The morning she died I felt light hearted for the first time in several years. Sadness too, but not for her death, just for her illness. To say you look forward to her being at peace shows an emotional honesty which is admirable and so important when society is discussing such tough subjects. The situation is hateful but your feelings are human and come from love.

It was a very moving film. So brave of the man and his wife to let the crew film his death - and very brave of Terry and his assistant to be there for it, especially given what Terry is facing. Clearly a heart-rending situation for all involved. But clearly he made an active, free choice to end his life before motor neurone disease made it unbearable - dying holding his wife's hand. MND is one of the conditions that I dread because it eventually robs you of everything and it's entirely possible you will have a lengthy and undignified end, eventually suffocating.

The story of the younger man with MS was equally moving - his poor mother when she said something along the lines of, if it was up to her of course she'd want to have her son alive for longer, 'but that would be selfish'. It was such a loving act, giving her son her blessing and going out to Switzerland with him.

And, I would imagine, assisted suicide with proper medical provision is far preferable for the families than successful 'amateur' suicides. I know a few people who are haunted by the suicides of relatives, especially those who discovered the bodies.

Naoko Just what I was going to say - a lot of the time, just knowing you have the choice gives you the strength to choose to continue living.

My gran was an assisted suicide in the Netherlands, in 2006 (am Dutch too). She had emphysema and faced losing both legs at the knee, then dying a slow death as her circulation shut down. Horse-size doses of morphine were not working. She was completely with it and made the choice, her family were with her and she was the one who pressed the button. Her life, her choice, her death - I only hope that when the time comes, I'll have the same choice in the UK. If not, there'll be a Dignitas Fund in our bank account.

The worrying thing about all of this is that - as with everything else in life - it all comes down to cost.

It's much cheaper and easier to assist someone to die than offer them proper care in a hospice, the most modern drugs, pyschological support etc.

BTW I think that drinking poison was a horrific way to die.

agreed stillchuckingit it looked horrific, that last few seconds could have felt like an aeon to him, it seemed such a forceful way to destroy a living beings life force.

watched the TP programme last night. On Thursday i will take my father to hospital for another brain scan. He has dementia, a clot on the brain, now walks with two sticks, is incontinent, in constant pain, confused, on a very restricted diet. he is sad, frustrated, angry, lost and wants to die.
DD2 watched the programme with me and said, at the end, "But why can't we do this for Grandad?"
I didn't really have a suitable answer.
At the same time, our dearly loved cat is at the vets. He will be operated on tomorrow. if he is found to be terminally ill and suffering, he will be pts to ease his pain.

A very moving programme and an even more moving thread. Love to all, juggling *