TO LIVE IN PAIN OR DIE WITH DIGNITY – THAT IS THE QUESTION

In September, the New York Times reported that celebrated and prolific children’s books author Robert Munsch had been granted a medically-assisted death under Canada’s MAID (medical assistance in dying) laws, which have been in force since 2016.

According to the Times, Munsch turned 80 this summer and had in 2021 revealed that he had been diagnosed with dementia, which was soon followed by a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. He applied for and was granted a medically assisted death soon after his diagnoses. No date has yet been set and Munsch, who is American but moved to Canada in 1975, told the Times that he planned to die when he starts “having real trouble talking and communicating. Then I’ll know.”

The Times reported that his stories are slipping away as he himself begins to slip away. Munsch, the article said, had been “at that unsettling, if sometimes brief, stage in the neuro-degenerative process in which he is symptomatic but still self-aware. This allows him to watch himself lose himself.”

This piece of news got me thinking about the whys and wherefores of suicide via medical aid: not an unreasonable concern as you grow older and possibly face a chronic condition you find untenable.

It’s a hard topic to discuss, given that it’s all tangled up with our notions of God, and free choice and a host of other delicate matters, including the interplay of personal, social and ethical factors. It elicits the natural human aversion to talk about death, period, and is seen by some as an attack on the sanctity of human life and a potential use for abuse. People who support it argue that we should have compassion for the terminally ill and allow them a dignified death of their choosing.

Assisted death is legal in 12 U.S. jurisdictions: California, Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. It is also legal in several Europeans countries including Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain. The law allows terminally ill people to request and receive medication to end their lives if administered by a physician.

Yet, the American Medical Association rejects the notion of medically assisted death, saying it is opposed to what physicians swear to in their Hippocratic Oath: saving life, not ending it.

A friend of mine in California recently underwent a medically assisted death and it was hard for those who loved her, particularly her poor husband. But it was her choice. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer, had only months to live and was wracked with pain. She was unwilling to spend her final time on this earth in severe discomfort, and a burden to all those around her. So she decided to leave the world on her own terms.

That made me ponder what I would do in her place.

Since all I have known is life, death seems so frightening and unknown. Yet, faced with pain and suffering or a lack of my mental and physical capacity due to a terminal disease, would I make the same decision as my friend? Is it true that where there is life, there is hope? These are among the existential questions we face as human beings. The Grim Reaper is coming for all of us and we know that. But it’s a little different when he’s staring you right in the face.

I haven’t answered these questions for myself yet. Perhaps I won’t be able to until faced with the situation. And, even then, who knows?

One thing I do know, however, is that saying goodbye is hard. Whenever and however you say it.