In America, only three states allow physician-assisted suicide: Oregon, Washington and Montana. Keep in mind that physician-assisted suicide is very different from euthanasia. In a physician-assisted suicide, the patient is ultimately responsible for ending his or her own life; the doctor simply gives them the means. In euthanasia, the doctor directly ends the patient’s life. Montana is a recent addition to the list. The ruling came in December of 2009 and was met with mixed feelings. According to USA Today, Steve Johnson, a cancer patient, is glad that suicide is allowed. But organizations such as the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide are protesting.
The British government is altering the laws for Britain and Wales a bit in determining whether a person would face prosecution for assisting a suicide. Currently, it is illegal to assist a person and is punishable by up to 14 years in jail. And the Brits aren’t looking at changing the law; they just want to alter guidelines about whether or not to prosecute.
Factors against prosecution would include a suspect motivated by compassion, trying to dissuade the victim, being reluctant to go along with the situation, reporting the suicide to the police, and a victim who came to an informed decision. Factors in favor of prosecution? An underage victim, or one without the ability to make an informed decision, suspect motivated by some gain, a paid suspect, or a doctor who is supposed to be in a helping role.
I never have subscribed to a Wiccan set of ethics, and I can’t hide the fact that I’m pleased with the ruling in Montana. One of the more horrifying memories of my childhood is visiting my grandmother in the nursing home, dying of Parkinson’s and with dementia, wishing she could die. And my husband’s grandmother is going through something similar now, incapable of caring for herself but still trying her damnedest to live.
A lot of this debate has to do with religious belief, ethics, morals, and values, and it begs us to ask some very serious questions of ourselves. What makes a person who they are? Is that lost when we begin to suffer from dementia? What is a life worth living? When I’m incapable of taking care of myself, is my life still mine and worthwhile? What happens when we die?
The answer to this debate is simple for me. My ethic says that once I can’t be valuable in some way to society, my life is no longer worth living. If I have to live in pain so bad that medication can’t take it away, that’s not worth living for. If my mind is so far gone that I can’t remember my sister or my children, that isn’t a life worth existing for. Oregon calls their law the “Death With Dignity Act” and I think this hits the mark pretty well. I want to be able to die with my dignity intact, and suffering through any number of illnesses so that “nature can run its course” isn’t very dignified to me.
It’s not a choice I can make for anybody except myself, but I want to be allowed to make that choice and right now I can’t.
My wife and I have a similar pact – we call it our “pillow option”. It is a very slippery slope indeed, but I believe we as a society need to find a better middle ground than a simple “No in all cases.”
I would disagree a bit on your Wiccan comment. Unfortunately, the Rede has been grossly misinterpreted by people (IMHO, mostly fluffbunnies) who desperately want it to be ‘harm none’ in all cases.
For a more nuanced view, I suggest you read Wiccan Ethics and the Wiccan Rede. Their interpretation is that “As you harm none, do what you will” applies to a very narrow set of actions (i.e., only those actions that would harm none). It does not address or apply to actions that might cause harm – that’s a totally different set of questions, with different actions. It also points out a ‘Rede’ is a suggestion, not an injunction.
I’ve been struck by the gravity of this debate a number of times and, quite frankly, dismayed at how quickly an answer of “no in all cases” is provided by so many. This, to me, is a refusal to think; a refusal to examine the complexities of life and the difficulties that inherent in living one. I’d be ready, if not completely willing to accept, a decision of “no in all cases” if that decision were made after some debate, discussion, reason, and examination, but all too often it’s a knee jerk response.
I never have subscribed to a Wiccan set of ethics, and I can’t hide the fact that I’m pleased with the ruling in Montana.
I suspect you’re going to take a lot of flak over that comment, and that’s a shame, because it’s going to totally distract from your point and your topic. Sadly, with that sentence, you’ve earned the flak. I don’t know a single initiate of any Wiccan tradition who has an issue with self-assisted suicide and the right to die; many of us support the cause, and those who don’t would never interfere with anyone else’s right to the choice. Anyone who thinks that Wiccan ethics in any way compel an opposition to that sort of self-determination has utterly failed to understand the Rede. (Which, admittedly, is a lot of people.)
Setting the utter failure of that sentence aside, I agree with everything else you’ve said here, and I think this is an important issue to be talking about. Kudos for raising the topic. I hope the criticisms that single sentence will generate don’t entirely derail the discussion.
“I never have subscribed to a Wiccan set of ethics, and I can’t hide the fact that I’m pleased with the ruling in Montana.”
Might wanna check up on those before you go there.
Even among Wiccans who opt to interpret “harm none” as an absolute statement, without it’s modifiers, there are people who view letting someone linger in pain and distress as doing more harm than allowing them to choose when their illness is going to kill them. It’s worth noting that all of the ones I’ve heard say as much (or similar), even the ones who’re so fluffy they’re all lint with no sweater to miss it, have been people who’ve nursed a friend or family member though a degenerative disease.
We’re in a society that largely treats death as something unnatural and anti-social, and palliative care is still sometimes seen negatively. Ignorance and a distrust of science don’t help; I’ve had relatives try to block someone who was a no-code being taken off a respirator, because as they saw it, breathing trumped brain activity as a sign of life, and stopping the breathing was murder.
I’d suggest anyone who wants some real perspective on DWD find some hospice care professionals to talk to. I wouldn’t want it legal without the clause regarding lucid, adult-level decision making, but sometimes you have to tell people it’s okay if they need to let go, and you shouldn’t go to jail for that.
Quoted directly from the Wiccan Rede: “Live you must and let to live”. This was the passage I when I made that statement, actually. I’m aware that most people allow for some fluidity in their interpretation of the do no harm rule, but this one seems pretty straightforward to me.
I agree with you, lucidity is important for the law, and our society doesn’t deal with death well. If you consider all the ways we explain death to children….”Gone to a better place” or in Christian households, “With Jesus in Heaven.” It doesn’t do much to help a child understand what’s happened.
Which version of the Rede? Doreen Valiente’s, Gwen Thompson’s Long Rede, or any of the variations attributed to people ranging from St. Augustine to Crowley? I’ve only seen that line in Thompson’s, and for my money she’s not exactly bedrock.
Not sure what you mean by a straightforward meaning. “Live and let live” is an admonishment to allow others general freedom to live as they please, which would put the Rede as supporting suicide if the person wishes it. Might be loads of people running around doing the Rede thing and just don’t know it.(Egad! Hide the liquor!) ;0)
Explaining to a small child that a loved one has “gone to be with deity” or “gone to a nice place that is understood as different from our plane of existence” I don’t have an issue with. It’s a way of explaining to them that person isn’t in his body anymore, and helps them not be as afraid of what might be done with that body afterward. The handling I take issue with is when people try to hide death altogether, and just tell the child “he had to go away, and you can’t call him or see him again”. Small kids can get the idea that maybe the person doesn’t want to see them again. The worst one is when someone tells a kid who sees the dead body “he’s asleep”, which sets up a really nice mess when the kid sees the body being shut up in a box and buried.
When any of us were kids, did anybody really believe or respect a parent who insisted that a new goldfish or hamster was the same one you’d had all along?
“Give kind heed to the dead: sea dead, sword dead, straw dead.”
When my grandmother died, we had the wake for her, and my then two year old daughter handled it better than most of the adults: she went to the body and said, in the solemn way that only kids can, “Grandma’s not there anymore.” So she kissed her cheek and then went to go play with her cousins. I figured that I didn’t need to say anything at that point…of course, my family has always held to the Irish Wake idea: celebrate their life, don’t mourn their death – after all, there is nothing you can do about it, and would they really want you to be moping about?
You know, to me, this “Death With Dignity” is mostly a hollow issue. Like many socio-political issues, it is about controlling who does what with their own bodies. Mind you, I don’t want John Q. Public making the choice to end his life if he is clearly out of his mind, but most of us are quite sane, and know that “X, Y, Z” pain and life-viability-destroying factors are things that would make us NOT want to live. Most of us have this figured out by the time we have hit high school, if not after having left it.
I don’t think anyone’s personal religious or ethical outlook should overshadow my own choices regarding my own body. I also don’t think that society should be deciding how we live or how we die by giving us only the option to die long, painfully, and slowly, or with great indignity, or lack of a viable life. I don’t think my life choices should end where my old age or a series of great pains or medical problems begin.
I’ve always thought that death is part of the cycle—the Crone who brings death is the same as the Mother who gives life. I do not think that an assisted/facilitated, dignified ending to life is to be feared.
I agree Laura. From a Pagan historical perspective there is nothing wrong with ending your own life. The Romans did – they understood there were certain circumstances that made suicide a perfectly reasonable option – and dignity was one of those reasons. I know of at least one Norse king who, rather than being captured at the end of the battle, stepped off his longship into the ocean in full armor – and went straight to the bottom.
My own perspective is partly influenced by what happened to my mother. She had Parkinson’s Disease. She always said that if she got to a certain point, she’d take a “long swim” – in other words, kill herself. Problem is, the disease had her so drugged up (once when she changed insurance and doctors he had to put her on a drug holiday to see how far the disease had progressed) that she really had no control over her own mind with or without the dementia. She lingered for years. It was terrible to watch. She had ordered no resuscitation but then changed it – and I was never sure who influenced that decision. As they told me, it’s never pretty – you never come back at 100%. Ribs are broken, etc. Eventually, it’s a half-life.
No, give me dignity. It’s nobody’s business but my own where I choose to draw that line. For now, about to undergo heart surgery, when asked, I told them to “resuscitate the hell outta me” because I’m fairly young and fit and in good health otherwise. Thirty years from now? That living will might look attractive.
I strongly believe that it should always be a personal choice whether to continue living or to end your life. The whole concept of suicide being illegal is a difficult one for me to wrap my head around. In my opinion, each person is entitled to the ownership of their own bodies, including the life force contained within.
It seems like our whole society is in denial about death. Death is a part of the cycle. It is sad for the people we leave behind, but it is necessary. It should not be treated as a shameful thing.
While I agree with Laura that the option of a dignified suicide ought to be available, the suggestion that “once I can’t be valuable in some way to society, my life is no longer worth living” is one that makes me uncomfortable. I realize that this is probably Laura’s personal value, meant for herself alone, but I have heard this comment, in various phrasings, whenever this topic comes up, and I dissent strongly from the idea that anyone’s value comes from their usefulness to a society. Humans have intrinsic value; it is rather societies that derive their value from their usefulness to their constituent individuals. This is particularly important within the context of assisted suicide, because a belief in a performative nature of human value could lead to individuals being pressured to end their lives when that is not truly their desire.