The suicide taboo

Craig Ewert died at a time of his own choosing.

Prior to his death the 59-year-old had suffered from Motor Neurone Disease (MND), an incurable affliction that saps the body of its physical powers, leaving the brain function intact. He had to pull the plug on his ventilator using his teeth, seconds after ingesting a lethal dose of barbiturates. He had to travel to Switzerland to perform the task.

His message to his children and to anyone who sees the film about the lead-up to his death (that caused so much controversy last month in the UK) is apparently quite simple: death fear and concerns of an after life experience somehow tarnished by killing oneself are quite pointless.

I am sad Craig and his family were touched by MND, not that he killed himself because of it.

His decision can not have been an easy one to make. Fifty-nine is way too young for anyone to die, but his physical condition and the prospect of continued physical deterioration, increased reliance on family and strangers for basic hygiene and nutritional needs, the attendant physical pain, the mental torture and the certainty that he was just putting off the inevitable moment, when his physical being would cease to function sufficiently to enable his lungs to operate, all led him to decide (no doubt with great sadness) that suicide was the best course.

Televising his death on British television (I have not watched it) has apparently created a storm of protest from so-called “pro-life” groups in the UK.

I don’t object to these groups existing, I just think their targeting of situations where individuals exercise their absolute right to determine their own exit as a means of promoting their own (let’s face it) moralistic world view tends to diminish the former (I think much worthier) issue.

I sincerely hope no member of those groups is ever affected by MND even if I suspect that being so affected might help change their world view.

I have seen a human being close to me slowly lose their physical power to MND. I have seen the life they led in a nursing home environment, the slow loss of not just physical faculty but dignity as well. I have seen their eyes full of pain and sadness and heard them cry out in anger about their lot in life. It doesn’t matter how you look at it, once you are dependent on others for physical comfort like toileting and washing you are not leading a life that is as dignified as it might once have been.

Don’t get me wrong. Nursing homes are in my experience full of wonderful, dedicated people. They’d have to be. Nursing homes are not holiday camps, they are places where many people go to prepare for death, voluntarily or otherwise.

The person I knew with MND did not choose suicide or at least never told me they would consider it an option. And a point came where it was no longer an option anyway. I imagine Craig saw that point coming in his life and decided to act now rather than lose control over his personal destiny. And for that I say good for him.

Suicide is not a joyous act of self-expression. It is an act of finality, often an act that leaves behind bewilderment and sadness in others.

But let us be clear here. If a person is mentally competent and decides to take their own life what right do others have to stop them?

Are we better off living in a society where suicide is criminalised (there’s logic for you) or one where people of sound mind can access the proper tools to do it as painlessly as possible?

I read arguments from the likes of Gordon Brown in the British Parliament about protecting the elderly from pressure brought to bear by greedy relatives as a sound basis on which to maintain the suicide taboo. Are we so powerless to draw a legislative distinction between informed consent and forced consent? Is it so hard to agree to a set of steps that must be followed before informed consent can be presumed?

In Australia it is apparently still an offence to publish information promoting ways to kill yourself. Have these people never heard of the Internet?

Voluntary euthanasia is a subject we need to talk more about, if only to allay the fears of the “pro-life” lobby that we are on the slippery slope to some sort of Soylent Green-ish final solution. We are talking about painless exit strategies for those who do not subscribe to an afterlife proposition and who wish (like Craig Ewert wished) to exit at a time of their choosing, not at some unknown future point after months, maybe years of physical degradation and indignity.

Go visit a nursing home sometime and tell me this is your master plan for your final days. It is certainly not mine.

And as much as I like to travel I sincerely hope that when my time comes I don’t need to smuggle barbiturates in from Mexico or travel to Switzerland just to get some peace.

And I hope by then we can all agree that it is human dignity, not longevity, that is the greatest cause.