The Myth of Dying (Great Article!!!)

[_TJ_]

The myth of dying

In the cacophony of debate about insignificant things, the torture of unassisted death goes on unremarked

Polly Toynbee
Friday March 25, 2005
The Guardian

Most religions have a day of the dead, and today is that day for Christians. In this most secular nation, polls show few now know what Good Friday is for, this day for sorrow, for contemplating death, loss and endings.

But here the usefulness of faith ends, for it is mainly the power of the religious lobby that forces people to die in pain and indignity due to beliefs on the nature of life and death shared by very few. For 20 years now, every poll on the subject shows that 80% of people want the right to be helped to die at a time and in a way of their own choosing. But that kind of "choice" is not on the agenda. Or not yet.

It happens to be a good day for contemplating how we die and watch others die as the US courts finally let Terri Schiavo go. She has been 15 years a-dying in a persistent vegetative state, probably beyond pain, though not beyond reflex responses. But if there is still suffering to be had, now in her seventh slow day without water or food, the law inflicts death by slow dehydration in the name of "ethics". It's a shocking spectacle that could be stopped with one merciful injection. But here in our own dying rooms similar terrible ethical deaths are inflicted on British citizens every day by kindly nurses and doctors. There is a conspiracy of silence about the actual processes of death.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1445522,00.html

[mattclearing]

1. Excellent stuff.

I wasn't aware that the majority had such strong feelings about going out when they are ready.

[LynzM]

2. Bookmarking for later!

Thanks! :)

[Marnieworld]

3. excellent article

I did not know the side effects of morphine. I was under the impression that as long as you had that you were fine. It is so sick that we are more humane to our pets than to each other.

[Demit]

7. My dad had terrible hallucinations. It was awful.

That was a very eloquently written article. This last sentence is so important: "But sooner or later we all must die - and the manner of our going will matter to us very much."

[pnutchuck]

4. I just watched "Million Dollar Baby" last night

and couldn't help but see the Schiavo case in it. Seeing how it's on every news channel, I was even more moved at her last moments than I think I normally would have been. Of course, I'd have cried, but I bawled at this scene. I think it showed accurately the conflict a friend or relative has in making the decision to help a person die with dignity and the determination a person has when they really want to die.

Though Schiavo could not say after her collapse "just kill me," I think the courts have accurately interpreted her wish to not live like a vegetable. I know I wouldn't. I've made it clear to everyone I know, that I don't want to live like that.

What I didn't know was the cruelty involved with the status quo of dieing, or of not wanting to continue to be kept alive. I remember Dr. Kivorkian and the controversy surrounding him. Yet, of all people, he seems to be the most understanding and sane doctor of them all.

[DrRang]

5. Terri, Javier and Hilary?

I haven't seen "Million Dollar Baby" or the Spanish movie "The Sea Within" on a similar theme, but your post makes me wonder. Both movies got a lot of praise from mainstream audiences and movie critics, and both of them were heavily criticized by fundies for "promoting" the right to die. So is part of the reason the fundies are acting so bat-shit crazy over Terri Shiavo that the sanity and compassion of those movies moved the discussion of assisted death more into the mainstream?

[pnutchuck]

6. Maybe, The Fundies, after all, think Hollywood is out to get them. eom