Don't Jump Off the Roof, Dad

I want to die with the little dignity I have intact. 

I have become increasingly frustrated by the sober and respectful debate about assisted dying. While everyone seems to be acting from the best possible motives (at least by their own lights), the issue that concerns me and so many of my friends and acquaintances is being ignored.

My greatest fear – and it is shared by so many old people – is not that I die in pain from an incurable illness and suffer for months. That’s an awful prospect but only relatively rarely does it become a reality. My greatest fear is that I live without dignity, an incontinent, gibbering burden on my nearest and dearest. That a very real prospect for many of us. For many of those who have witnessed a slide into such a status for those they loved and respected, that fear is close to terror.

The assisted dying debate proponents dare not extend their argument because their perceived weakness is ‘the slippery slope’. As a result, a very real issue is being ignored.

If I decide that I want to die, I can commit suicide. It’s been legal to do that for over 60 years. But, as Tommy Cooper pointed out in the song that gives the title to this post, it can be messy to jump off a roof or cliff and it’s traumatising for drivers to stand in front of a train. Quiet home-based deaths from pills or slashed wrists risk creating emotional damage on loved ones finding a body. None of it is neat and tidy.

Let me be clear: suicide is rarely a sensible solution and so many tragic deaths, especially among young people who needed counselling and care, are a stain on society and a devastating blow to those who loved the deceased. But we do currently accept that there are circumstances where death by one’s own hand is sad but understandable – even acceptable.

I want the option of ending my life tidily before I reach the stage where dementia robs me of control of my body and my mind. I cannot begin to understand why society would prefer that I live as a burden or die by the many messy means available to me.

The likelihood is that the slide will be so gradual that my desire to die will crystallise only as my capacity to act upon the wish dissolves. So, I would like my living will to be capable of specifying that my children could activate my previously expressed choice – it’s not that big a step onwards from the DNR notices that we find acceptable.

In law, we already give medical staff the right to end care, both in Court of Protection cases (where wishes and feelings and best interests are taken account) and in some cases where it is deemed not in a child’s best interests for life-prolonging care to continue. We know too that, in the past, there have been many instances where death has been quietly hastened by caring doctors; the awful crimes of Harold Shipman have no doubt ended that practice. We know too that those with enough money can make the choice to pay for a medically induced death abroad.

We should have the courage to accept that a carefully regulated mechanism, stretching beyond the terminally ill to include those over a certain age, will free many of the elderly of a fear that will haunt their later years. I am nearly 75 and in sound physical and mental health but I want the choice, made while I am fully competent, to die with dignity. I cannot understand why that choice cannot be offered. I’m especially insulted by the idea that I am not capable of making free choices and that I will be easily influenced. My experience of most elderly people is that they become more certain of what they want, not less, and less easily persuaded to change their minds; that’s rarely a plus but in this case it probably is.