Death and Dignity

I have not blogged in a while due to many reasons. The biggest reason is that I am currently going back to school and already writing thousands and thousands of words a week. As much as I love writing, I am already writing so much I just don’t have the energy. This week, however, I heard the story of Brittany Maynard.

For those of you who are unaware of her story because you live under a rock and/or don’t use social media, she is a charming and active 29-year-old woman who has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.  (I encourage everyone to go to Brittany’s website http://www.thebrittanyfund.org to watch the poignant video). This woman is going to die, but she has decided to do it on her own terms. Unfortunately, Brittany, like me, lives in the beautiful state of California that denies the right to death with dignity. Brittany was forced to uproot from her home in San Francisco to go to Oregon that allows her to control when she dies. On November 1^st (after her husbands birthday), she is going to go upstairs to her bed while surrounded by her family and friends, turn on her favorite music, and go to sleep. No loud medical alarms in a sterilized hospital surrounded by unfamiliar people in scrubs with the old lady down the hall screaming to get out of bed. No drawn out morphine drips and days of her body painfully and slowly shutting down.

I have been thinking about her since I heard her story. She is about my age, and she seems like a person I could be friends with. I also am angry. Furious. Frustrated. Why does she have to go to Oregon to do something that is difficult enough already? Not only is she facing her own mortality and suffering from the severe symptoms of having a brain tumor, she had to leave her home. Her brain is swelling up and causing severe and incapacitating seizures, so she is on harsh medications that cause their own severe side effects. She can’t even be home in her city and State where things are familiar for her last difficult days. This is ludicrous. This is WRONG.

            Before I receive the angry hate mail from my religious friends and my “slippery slope” pessimist friends, hear me out. Ok, so you believe that it is “wrong” for her to take her own life. Well guess what? I think it is wrong to make decisions for other people. I have heard the “we shouldn’t play God” case, and I would like to point out that we are way beyond that. A ventilator that forces air in and out of a person's lungs is playing God just as much as providing enough morphine to go to sleep. We play God when we prescribe and administer insulin for high blood sugar, and no one seems to argue against that. If death-with-dignity goes against your religious beliefs, don’t do it. Pretty simple solution, if you ask me. Freedom of choice should be paramount, not the freedom for you to never be offended by others choices.

OK, so I understand the slippery slope argument. If we allow this, it could be abused and before we know it we are killing off the mentally and physically disabled. Great point, but hold on. “Death-with-dignity or aid in dying is a medical practice in which a terminally ill and mentally competent adult requests, and a doctor prescribes, a life-ending medication the person self-administers” (The Brittany Fund, 2014). TERMINALLY ILL and MENTALLY COMPETENT. This is a voluntary choice of the physician and the patient to participate. If the prescription is written, it does not have to be filled or used. In the 17-year history of this law, many people have chosen not to use their prescription. Just having a choice to end the suffering if it gets too much is a comfort. The slim potential for abuse should not be a reason to refuse this choice. Narcotics are addictive and regularly abused, but somehow people still get NORCO for back pain. Let's decide to allow terminally ill people the choice to decide if and when they would like to die if it all gets to be too much.

            I could write an entire blog on death and dying and my observations on how our society perceives it. Maybe I will sometime. Essentially? We are afraid of death, but we all must die. Our religious beliefs give us guidance on what happens after, but we all must someday take the “big sleep”. If a person is facing imminent death and suffering, is it fair for us to tell them they must continue to suffer until the bitter end because we don’t like it? Because it makes us feel uncomfortable?

Still not convinced Death With Dignity is a good idea? Let me break this down. Do you have terminal cancer?? No??? Sit down and shut up. You do have terminal cancer but still believe in suffering it out? That is your choice. Why should you decide for others? You live your life the way you see fit and let others do the same.

            Personally, I am going to join the fight to get Oregon's Death With Dignity Act to become standard in every State.

Love to Brittany, her family, and all those in similar circumstances.