(The author is FEN Client Services Director and a FEN Exit Guide. She looks forward to a time when those she serves can comfortably and openly plan to end their lives when they are ready. This post was originally published at TheHumanist.com and is republished here with permission. Here is the original story. – Jay Niver, editor)
A growing number of us feel that death, when the time is right for us, should be comfortably in our own hands, not in the hands of doctors or lawyers, priests, or politicians. We want to be able to end our own lives, in our homes, at a time of our choosing, without society getting its collective knickers in a twist that our considered, personal choice is somehow an affront to – and I stumble here – an affront to what? To how things are supposed to be?
If we are supposed to be anything, we are supposed to be living in small bands hunting and gathering and dying long before the age of 30. Let us dispense with fanciful imaginings of what is supposed to be and instead consider what makes sense. Let us also dispense with any romantic notion of a natural death. We have always done everything in our power to wrestle death from the hands of nature.
I had severe pneumonia as a newborn and was in an oxygen tent for days. That would have been my natural death. I took another stab at it in my 20s with a climbing accident that, without medical intervention, would have finished me.
Whatever road to death I take, it is way too late for it to be natural. At a less philosophical level, is either life or death natural if you have medications supporting your circulation? Or oxygen supplementing your breathing? A pacemaker guiding your heart? A caregiver spooning applesauce into your mouth, because you no longer know how to feed yourself?
The vast majority of us come to a point of physical or mental debilitation that we never would have reached had we lived and died naturally. The additional time to live is a wonderful gift of modern medicine, but does it oblige us to suffer past the point of blessing, in indentured servitude to the medical establishment, to pay for that borrowed time? Must we then be cursed to endure exhausted, painful bodies or demented minds as some kind of penance?
Our lives are complex sagas with many a plot twist, but they all must end. As anyone who has turned the final page of an engaging novel knows, the end matters. It matters deeply. No wonder, then, that so many of us want to be able to comfortably and safely end our own lives, on our own terms, without having to turn to professionals of one sort or another who determine if our personal values are worthy by their standards, or if our assessment of our life’s remaining quality can be measured by their yardstick – or if our reasoning makes sense to them.
It is an unnecessary tragedy that those who want the option to end their lives must plan in secret, researching furtively behind closed doors, whispering goodbye only to their most trusted loved ones (if to anyone) for fear that their careful consideration of a reasoned, self-honoring choice might result in armed police arriving on their doorstep to haul them off to psychiatric incarceration — followed by the very future they wanted so desperately to avoid.
It is time for society to provide the tools and the legal protections to support those who want to be able to choose when and how their lives end. It is time for society to create new rituals and new traditions. We need new understandings and a supportive social framework, not only for those who wish to consciously conclude their own lives, but also for those who love them.
It is time for proudly and openly planned self-deliverance. Let us make the preparation for life’s end a time of coming together. A chosen death is an intimate opportunity to share and celebrate life’s final chapter.
That was brilliant. SO well said. Wish we could get it published in the NYT or Wash. Post.
Agree! Perhaps it will be submitted by Lowrey Brown as an opinion piece to NYT and/or WaPo?
This is a beautifully written piece. Thank you! (Moderator’s note: Dr. Dixon-Mueller will be sharing here the story of some others who chose their own life’s ending.)
Thank you, Lowrey. Every time I read this article, I am blown away by the depth of it. It is so well written and the sentiments involved are spot on. This article needs to be shared far and wide.
This fine essay accurately describes what so very many of us believe and hope for. How did it happen that “society” or the government somehow owns our life, owns our body?
Beautiful writing, Lowrey! I’m going to send it to my Christian doctor…
Thank you, Lowrey, for your thoughtful essay. I am in total agreement that those of us who feel we have completed our lives and wish to peacefully end it should have the full support of our families and communities. Why, indeed, does society get its collective knickers in a twist at the thought of self deliverance? The only stories of death that are celebrated in our society are those of the warrior who fights death and refuses to give in. It’s time to see courage in the act of mindful, rational suicide.
Wow, this is so deep and powerful because it’s so true. I agree with every comment here before mine…..can’t say it any better. I wish the laws and medical community can see it this way. I am so proud to be a member of FEN, knowing they will be there when I need them. No matter if it’s in a week, a month, a year, or more.
No, but there is nothing wrong with taking advantage of every medical treatment and intervention available, either. The pendulum can also swing too far in favor of cutting off one’s life and a “right” to die might become a “duty” to die. Why pay out pensions (for people fortunate to still get them) and Social Security, much less Medicare, for those “so-called” vegetables anyway, some cold and cruel people may say someday? Refusing medical treatment is a right, but glorifying premature death via suicide is not what a compassionate society does. There is *always* dignity in death, even for the severely disabled, whether physical and/or cognitively. It is not necessarily undignified to require assistance with activities of daily living. Far too many people just want others to remember them in their prime.
Thank you, Sue, for some valid points, but others are misleading. With almost 60 combined years of legalized US aid in dying, there is no evidence that any pendulum has ever swung toward a “duty” to die. That’s part of the infamous “slippery slope” argument shouted without evidence by opponents. Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) is anchored on a firm foundation, not some slippery incline.
What society “glorifies premature death via suicide?” No one I know lives there. It’s unfair to imply that folks are cheering and high-fiving when a suffering, terminally ill person chooses to die peacefully with loved ones at his or her side. And, if someone wants to be remembered “in their prime,” isn’t that their right?
This a well written article and that really targets the fear of wanting the right to die. Unfortunately, we dont live in a socially civilized world or one that has compassions as some want to believe. I agree, we should use modern medicine and use every option available to us, and we should not be thinking death as a first choice, and certainly not make this decision for anybody else except ourselves. Yes, we have many social programs that offer assistance in caregiving and help with living as independent a life as possible.
However, there is a dark side, if you’re married or disabled, you may not qualify for services … also, some cannot get assistance from religion organizations due to not being a member. As far as modern medicine, we don’t have a quick fix in a pill or any other cure. For me, I have reached all avenues with so-called corrective surgeries that have failed and made my condition worse; it actually sped up my disability. There is no cure; all I have is to wait to be fully blind and deaf to go with my physical disability.
I have lost friends and family due to them not being able to watch me struggle, even though I fight very hard to be positive and put on a bright smile. I feel this is a shell of me, because I have died a long time ago when hope of a successful surgery has failed. It is hard to recover from surgery, just to be thrown into a dark hole. You give up on hope, faith, and recovery. So, in times where nothing can be done and you feel encased in a body like a prisoner for a crime you didn’t even commit (except to take your first breath at birth), the last thing you need is to worry about the police hauling you away to a psychiatric ward for evaluation. It is an individual’s choice, because it is the individual’s body that they live in and are the ones who suffer everyday, and therefore it is and individual choice. So do not judge until you have lived the hell and walk in the individual’s shoes.
There is no place for politics or even doctor when one reaches the end. All politics and doctors do is make a profit on someone else’s misfortune, and this is dead wrong morally.
Thank you, Lowrey. Too many people still view committing suicide to avoid a likely very uncomfortable (whether emotionally or physically) end as a cruel act– one that robs family and friends of valuable experiences with their loved ones– only to discover that a peaceful, rational self-deliverance would have been much preferable to the ravages of modern medical interventions their loved one was forced to endure at the end.
Excellent article, thank you very much, I agree that we have the right to choose the way we want or we need to end our lives, you don’t have to be depressed to commit suicide, this world is very difficult, and when you have hard illness problems becomes a real nightmare, so to end it is the more compassive choice.