John Peel’s revealing column about Tom Byrne (Herald, May 11), a man who courageously chose a self-inflicted death by starvation and dehydration rather than await the prolonged ravages of incurable cancer, shines a spotlight on the woeful state of the “anti-death” laws in most of this country.
As a society, we take more pity on our animals than on our own species. With tender kindness, we euthanize family pets yet demand that fellow humans suffer prolonged tortures as fiendish and degrading as anything dreamed up by the specialists of the Inquisition.
Why? Because there are dreadfully misguided laws that claim that life is sacred and to end it under any circumstances constitutes murder.
We pride ourselves on being the most advanced society on Earth, with lifelong freedom of choice for every individual, yet we deny that same freedom when it comes to life’s end. How and when that end comes about (barring a sudden accident) should be entirely up to the person inhabiting his or her body. A choice should be available to end personal misery and to curtail the emotional and financial toll on survivors.
For patients who choose not to take action but to drift away under hospice care, fine, that’s their choice. When my time comes, I want to be able to say, “OK, doc, it’s time for the little red pill.”
Certainly, there are cases in which a force-fed, respirated sufferer is unable to indicate a choice. In such instances, compassion and common sense on the part of doctors and relatives should come into play. They should, legally, be able to act upon the question, “What would I want if it were me lying there?” I understand caveats need to be put in place to guard against grasping relatives “getting rid of Granny,” but those are details that should not deflect attention from the big picture.
Here’s a plea to state and national lawmakers: Pass some humane, sensible laws that give us the choice of an assisted death, and permit doctors and others to take part without fear of reprisal.
Jim Richards
Durango
