Individual Rights to End-of-Life Decisions -

Earlier this year, Sir Edward Downes and his wife Lady Joan Downes traveled from their home in England, to a clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, where they laid down on a pair of beds and held hands as they each drank a barbiturate-laced liquid.

They had been married for 54 years. He had been a renowned opera conductor, and she a former ballet dancer and choreographer. Sir Edward had been growing progressively more deaf and blind, among other painful age-related difficulties, and they decided to take this final step after Joan was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and given only weeks to live. So, they chose to end their lives together, peacefully, with their adult son and daughter beside them.

Their daughter said “Mum was not frightened of dying, but she was frightened of a living death.” And her father had “lived such an incredible life [but now] he couldn’t read and he couldn’t listen. He didn’t have a terminal illness, but without my mother, his life would have been unbearable. Ten years of misery was that really worth fighting for after such a full life?”

This resonates deeply with me, and with many other people. The fear of our last months being painful and humiliating, or being trapped in failing bodies without the little joys that sustained us. Of a living death.

This is why we need to open up discussion, rationally and realistically, about right-to-die initiatives.

Naturally, many people, especially advocates for the elderly and disabled, are concerned that “right to die” will morph over time into “obligation to die” or “right to kill”. After all, it’s not like there isn’t precedent for getting rid of supposedly useless and expensive citizens whether they want it or not.

But surely we, as a society, can come up with laws that keep everyone’s rights intact. Policies like advance directives and living wills are a great first step provided they are enforced, and medical personnel are protected when they follow patients’ wishes. And of course, policies like requiring an independent patient advocate for times when no advance directives are available and the patient is vulnerable.

It is criminal that we give our pets more dignity in death than we do our terminally ill citizens. The Hippocratic Oath says “First do no harm”. But sometimes, the harm is in fighting and prolonging death, and it should be the patient, not the doctor, who makes that call.

Sir Edward and Lady Joan had the right idea. Their lives on their terms, together, at peace. We should all be so lucky.