The assisted dying for terminally ill adults bill, which completed its second reading in the Houses of Parliament last Friday, promoted a storm of philosophical, cultural and religious contention.
The essence of the Bill seeks to allow a terminally ill person to choose to end their life. I support this notion, with, of course, the requisite safeguards. But – assuming the Bill eventually receives royal assent – will the legislatures go far enough in addressing this central tenet of humanity? I seriously doubt it.
Dying is no laughing matter
Even in the darkest recesses of humanity, humour has its rightful place. Triboulet, a 16th century jester at the royal court of King Francis I, smacked the rotund bottom of his boss in a fit of farce. The unimpressed monarch decreed immediate execution, only to offer a reprieve if the funny man could muster an apology more distasteful than the assault. “I’m so sorry, your majesty, that I didn’t recognise you! I mistook you for the Queen!” didn’t cut the mustard. Nevertheless, the benevolent ruler allowed Triboulet to choose the manner of his death. His response, “Good sire, for Saint Nitouche’s and Saint Pansard’s sake, patrons of insanity, I choose to die from old age,” raised a majestic chuckle and the man of mirth was allowed to live his remaining days in exile.
I suspect that most encounters with death are diametrically opposed to any attempt to attain comedic value. The shadow of dying is serious. Life is precious. But when both states blend without an immediate punchline afforded by the finality of death, a pandora’s box invariably erupts.
A personal tragedy
A decade ago, my beautiful wife Theresa died after a torturous 18 months in an unresponsive coma. Following the heroic efforts of the NHS to extract a benign cancer embedded within her brain, her exhausted immune system couldn’t fend off two strokes, with the latter stealing away her consciousness. In her late forties, she was otherwise healthy and, although requiring remote nutrition, she was able to breathe independently. Given a three-month life expectancy, I attempted to make sense of her imminent departure along with my two children, both in their twenties.
As the death clock continued to tick well past the horrific horizon, misplaced hope ushered itself in. I grasped at every news item that suggested there was a cancer breakthrough, but the reality of the situation was that the catastrophic stroke had destroyed any faint chance of recovery. The X-rays of her brain will forever be etched upon my memory. Her very essence had been wiped away in one cruel moment. A final monumental jolt of realisation struck when her caring nurse took me to one side and asked if I had arranged Theresa’s funeral. She wasn’t dead, but on reflection she was. Or was she?
Clinging to hope
I was terrorised by the thought that she could be the victim of locked-in syndrome – a truly shocking condition that I had never heard of until our family was thrown into this tragic twilight world where life and death aren’t defined with the certainty that I had once thought was as distinct as light and dark. I was scared, lonely and desperate. I was disgusted with the fleeting thoughts I had about the positives of death. I wrestled with what life really was, what it actually meant, and how it could be evidenced. Was the moment of death really as simple as I had always imagined: the total shutdown of bodily functions.
Like many people, Theresa and I didn’t talk much about death, even though we had both experienced the passing of many older relatives. We were in the minority and had made a will, but this measure was of no use during the episode where my life and those of my grieving children was held in some kind of gruesome stasis in which we were also expected to occupy the orbit of ordinary life. I recall trying to negotiate respective student grants and having to continually explain that my wife was incapable of giving any consent in relation to her financial affairs. If only we had talked about the absolute need to have in force lasting powers of attorney.
Whatever parliament ultimately decides, I urge you to make a few decisions. Talk about death, including your own. Be pragmatic and put in place the legal safeguards, as without them the utter disorientation of the process of dying is elevated to a whole new level of suffering.
And then continue to live the best life ever!
