Overseas aid
WHAT I write is not for the faint-hearted.
A friend of mine is filling in the form for the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland; she has MS. Like most people contacting Dignitas, my friend is not so much planning her death as seeking some insurance in case her illness becomes intolerable — the “provisional green light”, as it is referred to by the clinic.
Another friend of mine can have no such comfort. His tetraplegia is so extensive that he has little movement in his hands and arms. This means that he does not fulfil the criterion of being able to administer the life-ending medication for himself.
I’ve looked at the Dignitas website, and discovered that its eligibility criteria are wider than those proposed in Kim Leadbeater’s Bill (News, 15 November 2024; Comment, 22 November 2024), and might tally with my situation. Dignitas allows having “an unendurable incapacitating disability, and/or unbearable and uncontrollable pain”.
I think being tetraplegic, and menaced by intense nerve pain, means that I would be likely to meet their criteria. I certainly would in Canada, and Belgium, and Australia.
Another’s keeper?
AS YOU can see, I — and my friends — ponder the circumstances in which we might seek “medical assistance in dying”, to use the Canadian parlance. As for me, a lifelong member of the Church of England, I wriggle free from any ecclesiastical strictures by embracing the notion that we are each the keeper of our own soul.
And more besides: contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy, I do indeed ponder the considerable resources needed to keep me alive, and I foresee a time when I would wish them to be deployed for the benefit of others. I don’t believe I have been pressurised into thinking like this; in fact, I think it is a sincere Christian outlook.
Most of all, the impact on loved ones matters. I can foresee a time, however, when I might ask, “Do you mind if I go now?” My tears come just at the thought of this.
So, you can see I am starting to do my homework. Yes, it has been accelerated by the debate associated with the Leadbeater Bill, but, if you ever find yourself in a nursing home, you will become familiar with rather gauche enquiries about one’s wishes regarding the end of one’s life. I take courage from an acquaintance who proposed to have “Do not resuscitate” tattooed on her chest.
No laughing matter
LET us put squeamishness aside when talking about death, because no such delicacy applies to the other end of the lifespan. In fact, a good birth and a good death have much in common: both should be timely, wanted, free from complications, and enfolded within precious relationships. (Thank you, John Vincent, for this insight.)
I find myself full of such insights by virtue of having written a book about intergenerational fairness, Borrowing from the Future. Researching for the book led me to write a chapter, “Don’t shoot your granny”, prompted by three cartoons.
The first was one from Private Eye, which appeared way back in 1987, when marketing executives were forever using the heart sign to launch their advertising campaigns — for example, “I [heart] New York”, or “I [heart] my Mini Metro”. The cartoon was of a Desperate Dan-type character; on first scrutiny, I thought he had “I [heart] Grannies”’ on his ample chest. Closer inspection, however, revealed a darker intention: to [club] Grannies.
The second cartoon depicted a mother chastising her young son as she sees grandpa slumped dead in his armchair, and she quizzes the youngster: “Have you had the batteries out of your grandad‘s pacemaker?” as the lad plays, unconcerned, on his Xbox.
The third cartoon was from this very paper — remember St Gargoyle? It depicts a young curate with a string tied to a post and stretched across the pavement to catch — and dispatch — an old woman on her mobility scooter, with the comment “Terry hadn’t done a funeral since February.”
These three cartoons — and plenty of others — make me think something foreboding might be lurking beneath the surface. Jokes and cartoons about older people and growing old are everywhere, and the fact that these mysteriously avoid the censorship of political correctness should make us suspicious.
Humour and laughter can betray repressed and unconscious desires, as well as energising prejudice (just as the Parliamentary Women and Equalities Committee has recently reported). According to the American psychologist Gordon Allport, laughing at an outgroup — as I once did, with my collection of Irish and Liverpudlian jokes — is the first stage of a worryingly short scale, beginning with laughing and telling jokes, leading to avoidance, and then to devaluing and discrimination, emboldening physical attack or neglect, culminating in . . . extermination.
Don’t tell this to MPs as they consider the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
Downhill all the way
INTERESTINGLY, some traditional societies, particularly in African and Indo-Pacific cultures, have developed a means of protecting the aged from such dastardly intentions by espousing the idea that the dead have power over the living: those closest to death are, therefore, closest to the achievement of a supernatural power that can be used for good or for ill. It follows that those alongside the frail aged and soon-to-be-departed have good reason to be generous and gentle in their dealings.
In the West, our old age is a scarier prospect than death — because we cannot imagine a state that is beyond our existence, but we can all too easily imagine the pains and distresses of old age. Add to this dread the awareness that to stay alive requires a disproportionate share of limited resources, sitting on wealth intended to benefit younger generations, only to see it evaporate in the face of the weekly cost of staying in a care home.
In such circumstances, one can’t help but wish one was dead; and thus we find ourselves at the top of that famously worrisome slippery slope — but, let me tell you, I welcome the slippery slope that widens eligibility for assisted dying.
Ann Morisy is a community theologian, is tetraplegic, and lives in a nursing home.
