In February, I watched my mother be euthanised. I travelled to Australia to see it. She was ready to go: she lived in a care home, and was in terrible pain from spine cancer and terribly embarrassed by her lack of bodily control.
Yet even though she was prepared, her death would still be messy: both for her and the family she left behind. Tensions between my siblings had escalated over the months, as we negotiated a difficult and stressful process. Let down by the officials who were meant to help us, it would be fair to say that assisted suicide killed my family along with my mother.
Mine isn’t just a personal tragedy. As euthanasia inches towards legality in Britain, with a private member’s bill on assisted dying potentially being debated in the Commons this month, we must think seriously about the logistics of death. Ignore it and we risk wreathing a nation in trauma — long after bereaved families leave their loved ones behind. For whether a longed-for release or slow and painful menace, death is a painful business.
The protocols, though, are simple enough. Following the Oregon Dignity in Death Act, passed in 1998, the Volunteer Assisted Dying Act in New South Wales encompasses 11 distinct steps and a host of safeguards. It is only available to over-18s who have an illness that will cause death within 12 months, or is causing suffering that cannot be relieved. Patients must undergo three assessments and write a declaration of their intentions.
Beyond these tight theoretical rules, however, the practicalities of VAD are less proscribed. For one thing, unlike in the US, assisted dying is free. And therefore more accessible. But far more important is the way in which amateur family members are roped into the protocols. My mother, as part of the process, nominated one of my sisters as her Key Person who would help her navigate the path to euthanasia.
This, though, was a difficult emotional burden for my sensitive sister, who struggled with poor health. To make matters worse, she was estranged from my other siblings. My mother selected this sister simply for her own ease. Another, more pragmatic sister had long been Evelyn’s Power of Attorney, but when new papers were drawn up, her name was misspelled and Mum wouldn’t sign incorrect legal documents. Instead of having the papers corrected, and waiting until her daughter could make the six hour-return drive to sign them, Mum was impatient.
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SubscribeOnce you let assisted death in the slippery slope of big government finding a way to save some money will make sure anyone with a signature will be offing themselves with the help of government funded “healthcare”. Maybe government should stay out of killing people?
It sounds like the author’s mother was committed to undergoing this process for reasons unconnected with “saving the government money”. I wish opponents of VAD would be honest, and say “I oppose VAD for religious reasons”. Then I might have some respect for them.
Allow me to oblige.
I believe in the value of all human life from conception to natural death.
My mom had a multi year decline due to dementia after a brain infection that she should have never survived.
Were there challenges? Of course, for her and for those who loved her. But living through those years with her were an expression of the love and regard in which we held her.
I wish we lived in a culture that valued life, warts and all, over death.
Thank you. I respect your opinion (although I myself have a different one).
I might well agree with most of your analysis. But…
I have a worse example where the illness was depression and addiction. The patient is alive and well now after a deal of expensive therapy yet appeared to have been persuaded by an over zealous clinician.
I don’t really trust bureaucratic processes in the UK public sector to deliver, mercy, love and respect whilst ignoring cost, organ shortages, operational targets and the latest fashions. 2 kidneys and a freed up bed anyone? They failed on Blood and sub-postmasters. All working age so a load of old wrinklies won’t even register.
I have no solution to offer; I’m an amateur. It just bugs me a very great deal that any objections will be swept away and ignored and the “pathway” will be exploited but unchallengeable.
I have worked for the government (admittedly the Australian government, but they are all the same), and I know how hopeless they can be. If I ever find myself in the position of the woman who the article is about, I am going to take the decision to end my life, with or without government support. I consider that decision to be mine and mine alone.
I watched my partner live through the pain of inoperable cancer. He wanted to come home so he could die with dignity and at a time of his choosing. I couldnt clear the house in order to get a hospital bed in. Finally after many tantrums, I managed to get a hospice bed for him. He was on huge amounts of painkillers and still screaming every time someone touched him. He kept saying “if I was a dog, H would have put me down by now”. H being a friend who is a vet! There was little dignity in his final weeks or in the time of his death no matter how caring the hospice staff were. Us humans deserve the right to die where and when we want in circumstances like this.
I feel your pain. However societal cohesion is bigger than a persons pain. My mother was sick for about a year and a half before she died. She had some sort of early Alzheimer’s and she went through hundreds of micro strokes over that time. The macro affect was that her brain would stop working for a while and then she would recover. Each time felt like the last time. My extended family decided to allow me to deal with it alone after a while. I had to shutter my business and take a nine to five job. I should have quit work but that’s hard when you have children and ex wives to feed. Each time the healthcare system felt it was time to move on and in the end her doctor was the one who helped people end it. I had removed all life support and her last dip to oblivion was in a Catholic old folks home she was just moving into on. Saturday morning just as I got there to visit her she was cheyne-stoking as she died. I like to think she was still there and was waiting for us to arrive. But she was definitely fighting till the end. She taught me a lot and her last lesson to choose life stays with me now.
There are far worse things than death. Why fear a natural process so much? My mother died a horrible death from dementia, she was living a recurring nightmare over and over again that left her screaming whenever she had the energy. I would have killed her myself, out of love, for my mother and deep friend. But then I’d been in jail and I had a teenage daughter. We automatically kill pets when they are obviously suffering, but don’t extend that same mercy to to our fellow humans.
As this article so eloquently demonstrates, the process can be horribly complicated. The undertaking being considered is so far outside the ordinary that it is impossible to predict the effects. Each case will be different.
In my opinion (and that’s all it is), this is a perfect example of the shortcomings of the technocratic system beloved of modern politicians; it is simply beyond the scope of anyone to account for the wreckage caused by this.
Are you calling my comment disingenuous? You perhaps should read it if you I want to comment on it.
You distrust the government. I get it. However, when my I get to the position in which the writer’s mother was in, I want the opportunity to end my life. I do not see how my doing so is any of your business.
Well put. Agree completely.
I’m against it for spiritual reasons, but also because I see it as the start of a very slippery slope. The two are not mutually exclusive.
The slippery slope to people having control over their lives?
Nobody is an island. Many fragile people take their cue about what they should do from the people around them. And unfortunately I distrust government for valid reason.
Who has “control” over their life?
Well, I have control over mine.
Considering that the military and police are among the primary functions of every single governement that existed, your sugestions seems quite unapllicable.
Police and military aren’t paid to kill people.
The military are!
Not at all. Maybe you should go talk to somebody in the military to find out if their job is to kill people.
Not a whole heap of point to a military if it cannot kill people.
You mean use force to protect their country?
Well, yes. The way one does that is to kill the soldiers of the invading army.
I’m in support of suicide and feel the Christian rejection of it has been a disaster. Antiquity is full of stories of noble deaths, either from self sacrifice or when facing a worse death. But no modern state will ever create an intelligent, reactive system of euthanasia, as it only knows how to create processes and procedures, bureaucracies animated by policies, and officials with job descriptions and targets. None of that will nurture or satisfy the needs of people going through the most personal experience a human being can have. Western Modernity has studiously removed any authentic contemplation of death from everyday life. If it now reappears it will only be as an extension of the prevailing ideology of economy and rationalisation.
I’m 43 and think about death – specifically the circumstances under which I would wish to end my life – very frequently. I have no intention if such a situation arises of polluting my final weeks with the scourge of forms and consultations. No-one needs permission to die, the very suggestion is perverse. If a self administered pharmaceutical option isn’t available I’d sooner go full Captain Oates on a winter day in the Lake District than put my fate into the hands of paid death dealers.
“polluting my final weeks with the scourge of forms and consultations.”
Very good point. Give me Captain Oates any day.
My family is largely uncluttered with the Western Modernity problem, and I discuss a managed death quite happily with them. My daughter made me promise that I don’t do a self-suicide because of the additional emotional trauma – so assisted suicide will be the option for me when/if the time comes.
I very much respect Captain Oates and his decision to “go outside”, but is the Lake District cold enough for that? I have never been there (I live in Australia), but I do note that Oates was in Antarctica at the time.
Couple of days wandering out into the outback will probably produce the same end result
Freezing to death? It can get a bit nippy overnight, but the outback is not a “cold” place.
Bloody global warming, you can’t even kill yourself any more
Best reply ever haha
You probably still can in Antarctica.
Anyone who’s ever found themselves high on the Lakeland fells when the weather turns (as it is wont to do) could testify that survival requires a speedy descent. It’s not about the temperature, but simple exposure to the elements. It wouldn’t be quick but at least the view on the way up would be great.
Just bring bottle of whiskey and down it. Minus 20 should work fine. I think removing yourself can be the brave choice, however usually it is the easy way out. And I think individuals can make this decision for themselves without the states intervention.
I hear you. However, the hospice option – withholding life-saving intervention – usually achieves the prompt death the patient wants without placing a burden of guilt on relatives, and that guilt can manifest years after the actual event.
Wow. This is one selfish family it would seem. Adding more stress and distress to the terminally ill mother.
Be careful to judge other families.
I am absolutely free to judge my family, because I am the only one in it.
I thought the Mother sounded monstrously selfish,controlling and manipulative
You hit the nail on the head, Jane.
I thought she sounded sensible and level headed.
The problem with a rules-based order and rules-based society is that the rules are not perfect, nor can they be made to be. Like some others here, I see a situation that was needlessly complicated by petty family drama.
You should consider what has happened in Canada and Belgium when looking at these proposals. The Trudeau government was at one point proposing that depressed teenagers should get MAID (Canada’s term for state sanctioned suicide). Given the progressive madness we’ve been through in the last 10 years (autistic 13 year old girls getting mastectomies, defund the police, etc) you should take the slippery slope arguments very seriously. It is only a little hop from grandma can choose to die to grandma really ought to move on now. It is a space rife for abuse by bureaucrats trying to save money and children looking to get their hands on the estate. Looking into the future God help all these childless cat ladies (and male equivalents) when they are 75 with no one to look after them, no money, and no one to advocate for them.
” Looking into the future God help all these childless cat ladies (and male equivalents) when they are 75 with no one to look after them, no money, and no one to advocate for them.” Yes. Assisted dying for people who have no children or grandchildren, and any relatives they have a long way away and little-seen, will be a major subject in 20 years time, or even less. How do they give consent, who will back this up, and how will the professionals handling the wish to die manage this?
That will be my situation. Unless my God intervenes.
Better than selfishly having children just so they could be your retirement fund and caretakers.
You do realize that it’s not necessary that children are going to maintain a relationship with you in your old age, right?
Assisted dying is a choice and people will soon be free to make this choice in thevUK with new laws. Quite right too because what they choose is none of your business.
I just can’t – and frankly don’t want to – get past the principle that the state should be in the business of allowing citizens to be killed.
You might find this interesting: https://www.cbc.ca/arts/can-i-get-a-witness-tiff-1.7320476
Kenneth Law murder trial might be of interest for pro death sorts.
Smiley Dame Death,I only heard uncorroborated rumours about Jimmy Saville,is not going to sign up to be first on the list for State Execution is she. The new crime that merits the Death Penalty will be Old Age,Poverty, Not Fitting In,and being an Economically Inactive Unit. Or to use another phrase – a Useless Eater. Now where have I heard that before.
So, to sum up: A terminally ill woman, who was of sound mind and in significant pain, decided to avail herself of VAD, and did so. Her dysfunctional family made hard work of the process for their own reasons.
That was my take away too. The system appears to have worked as well as it could – it was postponed for a day, that’s all. It’s hardly the job of the hospice/hospital/VAD staff to micromanage squabbling siblings.
I totally understand that there would be an immense strain, but, if only for sake of the departing member, it’s for family members to bury their petty differences, not expect ‘the system’ to somehow do it for them.
“it was postponed for a day” because of a staff shortage, a small thing in the day-to-day running of a hospital, but huge in terms of an appointment with euthanasia. That staff shortage does suggest the potential for tragic bureaucratic mismanagement further down the line (almost inevitable), something we hear about every day. I’m not sure if I have faith in the government being involved in euthanasia.
Excellent piece of writing, though.
Exactly. This, of all things, requires flawless execution every time. Which organisation, public or private, can offer that?
Vets manage it when they put animals down.
Yes – it is like the physician or mid-wife not showing up for the birth. If the government says social workers will be there to help – then they should be there to help. In Canada there are stories of the people carrying out the death getting impatient with everyone when the soon to be deceased takes too much time saying goodbye.
That’s exactly how I read it to be honest. The actual assisted suicide was largely irrelevant to the article, it was more about a long running family feud
It is an impressive piece, very honest and very well written. Ms. Dixon’s family might be no more dysfunctional than the average family but it is clear from reading the piece that euthanasia could cause difficulties for any family. It is an immensely difficult subject that is all too often treated in a cavalier fashion by its supporters. Anyone who is faced with making a decision about euthanasia, including a legislator or a government department, or who is faced with the prospect of a family member opting for euthanasia, should read the piece.
Any number of things “could cause difficulties for any family”. In the present case, the problems were those of the family, not of the deceased. She was clear on what she wanted to do.