Unconscious, Michael lingered for hours. His waiting children had no one to call for advice, but Michael had left instructions for this eventuality. Sobbing, his son Bill lovingly carried out his father’s wishes.
“The rest is up to you,” he finally said, ending the conversation for good. He didn’t have any more guidance, and certainly no more patience to talk about it. I was surprised. To me, it felt slightly irresponsible to leave all these decisions to other people.
“We reached the goal for patients like me, who aren’t terminal but degenerative, to win this battle, a battle that opens the doors for the other patients who come after me.”
“We have a long way to go to educate the public about choices in dying, about defining ‘life’, and about making the end less agonizing for patients and their families.”
A friend’s .357 “solution” reinforced his decision to learn from right-to-die groups.
Managing dying and death is difficult enough. But if you do nothing, you’ll be a pawn in a profit-driven medical system.
“Medical aid in dying should not be proscribed by society’s laws or condemned by its mores.”
If you believe the media and ignorant, sanctioned killers, ‘putting down’ healthy animals that have done nothing to deserve an early death is a compassionate, merciful act. After all, they are ‘euthanized.’
On the surface, continued passage of U.S. death-with-dignity laws appears favorable for the RTD cause. But the landscape is littered with potholes, land mines, and detours that raise more questions than the new laws address.