I have written about people’s choices and the ways they behave many times and this bit of T.V. proves my point most eloquently.
In anyone’s life it is humane to take responsibility for the welfare of your fellow human being.
I take that responsibility as seriously as anyone should.
As part of the abuse given me in my time, was one of the most demoralising forms of emotional blackmail…….that I was and would be responsible for someone’s suicide……..that I was and would be responsible for them taking their own life. This is really very irresponsible and really very nasty, ( to them i am such a weight, burden, horror, that my very existence in their lives will cause them to kill themselves rather than face being in the same room as me!!!) wrong!!!!
Now it was clear to me at the time and always has been…….that this was a paradox.
My reasoning was always this………If I was able to persuade a person it was the right thing to do, if I planted the knife, gun, pills into someone’s hand and somehow coerced them to use it. If I was able to guide them to the tracks, the roof, the car and brainwashed them into moving themselves to the edge.
……….I would still not be responsible for them taking their own life…….as it would not be their choice………..it would not be suicide……..it would be murder.
I could commit murder, I could commit suicide,……but I don’t want to I wouldn’t like it and I would question myself morally.
It is logically impossible for me to commit someone else’s suicide.
To take your own life is only a choice you can make.
Someone can hurt you, spread lies about you, violate you and yet it is still your choice whether you take your life or not.
As it happens the people who leveled this responsibility towards me are still alive……….which is good ay…….. and I don’t hate them either, which makes me feel better….why they said this to me and about me I will never know, how they thought it…..to frighten me, to hurt me, to blame me, to …to……..but that it after the fact
But there you have it……..Terry Pratchett is debating whether to take his own life, as the last choice he will have left in it…………..as he faces living whilst losing all other choices he has now and once had……..along with most of his memory.
The most salient point that the programme raised for me was a question of semantics…….the wording of the process…………………..assisted suicide is different to voluntary death……..( one of the most blindingly obvious points to me was that the people who used Dignitas, would gladly have stayed alive, if it weren’t that they were going to die horrifically) so I thought a more fitting terminology would be autonomous death.
These semantics, the meaning of the words, also help define the role of the person in the room with you at the time.
Many of the people who commit suicide, suffer emotional and psychological problems not physical ones. …They may lay blame on someone or something…….but logically if that were the case, that constitutes an accusation of murder, that is not true.……..If they achieve their goal it is done fully alone to stop those who may wish to intercede. They have reasons that often go with them to the grave and leave people who may love and care about them, if only humanely, with no understanding as to why…to suffer a greater loss.
To assist in someone’s death, ……..If someone holds the cup of poison to your mouth by mutual consent and pours it down your throat, this does not automatically equate murder but the death cannot be called suicide either. So perhaps assisted death would be more clear.
There is also the chance that a person who has wanted to die may change their mind and be unable to communicate this.
If a person, publicly, with good reasoning, sound judgement, and clear consent decides to drink a glass of poison and asks someone to holds their hand and strokes their hair as they do it. This is a n autonomous death that is witnessed by others.
It does not mean that the witness will not suffer loss and bereavement but it may help them to know they were fully consulted and cared about, and that their presence was needed as support in this final act of freewill.
Those people who were pro active about this and wanted it to be legal in this country were making the case for individuals with very little choice, to die in pain and suffering or to die pain free and with love………those individuals with terminal illness.
One of the concerns raised in the debate after the programme led by Jeremy Paxman J was this………………
That if it was made legal for assisted death to take place in this country, that vulnerable people could be coerced into doing something they do not want or need to do……and people with learning difficulties and disabilities were mentioned in relation specifically to the Winterbourne case recently documented.
I had to disagree there; vulnerable people such as this would be no more at risk in this country, with a legal ruling for autonomous death, than they are at risk now.
……….If someone gave a vulnerable person like this a cup of poison to drink, without their knowledge or consent…it would be murder…….not assisted death or autonomous death……..and the sociopaths/psychopaths like those at Winterbourne would definitely be those such people who might be likely to do that.
For Britain to create a ruling to allow autonomous death and protect the people who witness it. I would hope the government would have the foresight and understanding to show the immeasurable difference of the two situations.
Another debate was that it was truly depressing and that it was emotional blackmail to say, to think like this or want this for yourself. I had to disagree there also. The person who made the statement
I thought to myself that, I would, if called upon, hold someone’s hand and stroke their hair, if they wished me to as they chose to autonomously die.
I also thought if my only choices were to die full of pain or to die peacefully. I might choose this option too. …..Although it has to be said, living under pain and threat of pain, emotional and physical for many years, did not stop me from loving life and love and finding it too…….so I probably wouldn’t make that choice myself. If I did I would hope that my family/friends would be there to hold my hand and stroke my hair.
I hope the law changes in this country does change for those brave and defiant individuals who need it.
Take care my pretties xxx