I was quite interested in this story about a 91 year old woman who’s being prosecuted over selling “suicide kits” over the web, something she was moved to do after watching her husband die a slow and horrible death from a terminal disease. She’s making bags that you can put over your head and fill with helium to have a painless death that leaves a pristine corpse (unlike, say, a shotgun). Perhaps off-topic, the part of the story that shocked me was that she’s selling the kits for $60, and last year she did nearly $100,000 in sales! Wow! Given that it’s not easy to find her webstore, those sales figures are quite remarkable. I don’t know if I should be disturbed about that, although I suspect that the “true” market, were the stigma to be removed, would be massive. No one wants to die slowly or painfully or stripped of dignity, nor should they have to.
While I do hope that her clients get appropriate counseling from their doctors and therapists — there’s no good that comes from someone committing suicide over depression or treatable disorders let alone a stressful life of unemployment — I am 100% in support of her actions (her cause?), and in the long-term hope that the government allows doctors to provide “doctor assisted suicide” and society removes the stigma from folks who are forced to do this, because it’s not “suicide”. The death is the direct result of the disease that brought the action on. All they did was chose to reduce their pre-death suffering’s duration. If someone has an incurable degenerative and/or terminal disease, they have a death sentence. Checking out early doesn’t somehow change that.
We don’t allow our legal system to punish people with the “cruel and unusual”. We don’t let tax-cheats be whipped, we don’t chop off a thief’s hands, we don’t lobotomize blasphemers, and we don’t castrate perverts, yet we expect those with medical afflictions to bravely tolerate far, far worse for much longer… until they die from it in fact. We also accept that it’s unacceptable to torture people even if “good” might come of it (let’s skip the debate on its efficacy) like stopping a terrorist attack or finding a kidnapped kid. Yet somehow not only do we force those with certain illnesses to spend the rest of their lives being tortured, we ensure that this torture be as effective as possible by putting up legal blockades to ensure they can’t get proper treatment for the pain under the false and irrelevant premise that narcotics might fall into the hands of addicts. Things that everyday parlance calls “a fate worse than death” is not deserved by those we brand as “evil” yet no one blinks at the idea that those who the dice-throw of life handed the right disease be gifted with said unacceptable fate. It’s perverse and sickening and inhumane… Inhuman. And I’m only scraping the surface of the argument. There are a nearly infinite number of reasons and cases where it’s rational and justifiable.
If someone is going to spend every day of the rest of their lives being tortured, where in every moment the dominant experience that they have is pain, how can we expect someone to face that? Or what if they are slowly losing their bodies, becoming paralyzed and having taken away almost all the things in life that give them joy? Not everyone wants to be Steven Hawking. Not everyone wants to be a noble cripple nor should they have to be. Worse yet, what if they are slowly losing their minds, being pushed bit by bit into a nightmare? What if all of these together are their fate? Choosing to go through hell for who knows how long, with the only reward for your endurance being death, is not something that everyone is going to see value in. Yes, it’s true that death is hard on the people that love (and are loved by) the ill individual, but there comes a time where the relationship decays to the point where its value is only symbolic, and it certainly doesn’t do anyone any good to have the people they care about burst into tears (or just barely hold them back) whenever they see them. It just makes the situation all the more hellish by heaping on emotional guilt and pain. Slow death doesn’t do anyone any good, and I don’t think this woman should be attacked for giving people the tools to empower themselves to escape such a horrible fate.
And finally, and as best as I can do to stay on topic with my usually light-hearted sculptures, here’s a head on a pole that I carved (rather than sculpting it like most of what I make) out of a random blob of hardened discarded clay. There are more photos after the break if you want.
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“I’m doing what I can to improve the world,” she told 10News. “There’s a lot of heartache and difficulty here.”
Thank you for posting that – the more people who know and have the means to end themselves the better.
But when does mercy killing become mercy murder.
Frankly my own case leaps to mind. In Dec 1994 I was treated for late stage rectal cancer and given a year to live – maybe more years if i elected extreme chemo and radiation which of course i did.
kv and ash planted an oak tree to mark my return. There are lots of wonderful well taken 35 mm pix – i have a few here on the boat. Trouble is what returned from KGH is not what entered.
i have video interviews kv made with ash on the theme of celebration that “my father has cancer” something they would rise to but in a few years i would die
implicit was the notion that each “other” would be a hero – endure the consequences of the collateral damage my treatments caused plus my inattention such as always having to take a new towel to be certain it was clean – or my smell – as good as the appliances are they are imperfect – lucky for you by then you were starting BME –
it is not their fault i got cancer
i spoke with kv the other day on the matter of your background pain and one thing leading to another she said the “children were all on my side” that i leave you (2000)
She was referring to 18 June 2000 (Father’s Day) when they left having I presume lost all hope I would die of cancer cases
Nothing in my life brings me greater sadness that the recall a few days later of your brother Devon banning me from arguing my case at Waterloof –
To bring some generally and i hope without it reading as illusions of self-importance on my part – it was Mutiny on the Bounty.
That was going on 11 years ago but how do they – talk about family if they cannot confront the truth of what really happened – were i a grand child – i think i’d know “it ain’t necessarily so.”
THAT FOR SOME REASON MY PARENTS CANNOT TELL ME WHY OR WHAT HAPPENED IN 2000.
Back to your words SDL you could be HAWKING MOST OF US – NOT A CHANCE.
YOU ARE MY LUCKY ONE – BUT YOU KNOW THAT – STAY LUCKY.
If there is a plus to cancer it is that it is not contageous.
Contrast that with HIV and consider how small the world.
Remember the Stewardess who gave you shelter when you signed yourself out of the Clark Institute,
She gave up her job with A/C to be at the bedside of Patient One. That’s why you know her – she did spanish translation – a couple jobs with cognition sciences, small world eh!
This is what i had to say on it :
ts a question of who owns your body and by extension you. Do you own yourself, or do your friends, relaties, society at large?
If you own your body, yourself, then it’s your right to do with yourself as you damn well please, up to and including destroying it.
If the society own you, if you’s the property of your friends, family and other people, well then yes, they can force you to live against your will and make it criminal for you to destroy their property ( your body).
Think about it.
As for the ‘ suicide is selfish’ argument, how is it not selfish to force someone to live when they don’t want to?
I’ve been working at a vet’s office for 2 years now, and one of the most wonderful things I’ve been able to be a part of is helping an animal end it’s misery through euthanasia. It’s sad, and I admit I’ve cried a few times, but in the end I know it was the right thing, and I think it’s sad that we don’t extend that dignity to humans. Why is it “humane” to help end an animal’s suffering, but it’s ok to let a human suffer much worse?
KJ – suppose an airline pilot decides to kill herself – wouldn’t it be selfish to do so while flying
JILARY – so people decide when it is right to put a dog down
do you think shannon or the doctors should decide when he be put down
in the real world of law if the doctors can decide more the patient can decide less – in either direction
@ Starbadger- I’m sorry but your example is inapplicable here. Your hypothetical pilot is performing the duties of his job, on the company time, which he is presumably paid for. He has sold his time and labour to the airline for an agreed upon duration of time, so for that period of time he effectively belongs to the company.
KJ – thank you for reminding me of the people I meet every day – doing their jobs @ 100%
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