Britain is having a national conversation about The Right To Die……..by which is meant the process where a terminally ill person with no prospect of life can be “assisted to die”. At the moment in Britain, people are free to board a plane for Switzerland where assisted death is permitted in exceptional circumstances. The legal position of their relatives is ambiguous.
In Britain the organisation Dying With Dignity, previously known as EXIT campaigns for a change in British legislation to allow “assisted dying” within Britain. Most doctors and an even higher number of the General Public are in favour of Euthenasia. I suspect that most are at ease with it when they think of themselves rather than a general principle.
My own position is that I am unafraid of Death. But like everyone, I am scared stiff of Dying. Out there, there is a date on the calendar with my name on it. A meaningless date now like 18th June or 27thOctober will be the date that will be remembered by my family as my “anniversary”. And as I will be 60 years old in May, I find this more pressing than I once did.
I watched my parents die. I have watched my beloved aunt suffer with dementia and die. I find little dignified about Death. I do not wish to be embarrassed on my death bed. I do not want a eulogy that mentions how inspirational I was. If I have noticed one thing………….it is that there is an optimum age…….different from person to person but sometime between 75 and 80……….it just doesnt get any better.
Churches oppose Euthenasia but while we potentially live longer, the quality of those end years do not seem to be better. There is of course a difference between unnecessarily prolonging life and deliberately terminating life but thats a grey area which theologians and doctors reserve to themselves.
Its odd that we talk about a Right to die. It is negative. But increasingly there are pragmatic reasons to at least think about it as an option.The provision of Health Care and Accomodation for a growing population of senior citizens. And the shocking revelations about what goes on behind closed doors in old peoples homes.
The position some years ago was that every elderly person could expect to live in a (state provided) old persons home. But of course there were comparatively few old people and the system coped. Margaret Thatcher privatised many old peoples homes and the Capitalist Vultures descended, cutting corners with under-trained staff, no trade unions and business models. Ironically they often financed this by speculation in property markets, selling off the homes and renting them back. Many have gone bust and the strain has been taken up by…….the State……again.
Financing retirement in an old peoples home is a nightmare. Nobody can be left outside the system so even the destitute are entitled (properly) to the best care.
The system works like this: A person with less tha £14,000 capital (including value of a house) is entitled to live in a nursing home (subject to age or infirmity level) and the cost will be met thru the State pension. The actual cost of Care is about £350 per week, which is about three times higher than the State Pension. The State Pension is paid directly to the Health Authority (about £20 is given back to the resident as an allowance) but the full cost of care is met by the local Health Authority (the State). Where no local authority Home is available, this means the old person is sent to a “private home” effectively for free and might well be in the next room to someone paying over £350 per week……..because capital exceeds £14,000.
This means that houses ….family homes often have to be sold……to meet the costs of elderly care. Ironically, this disproportionately affects the rich, comfortable and middle class voters who enthusiastically vote Conservative. They have seen their assets……..or expected assets dwindle before their eyes. The family home, intended to be a nestegg is actually a liability and the longer elderly parents live……more so.
Much can be made of greedy middle-aged sons and daughters wanting their elderly parents to die to preserve their inheritance. But I think the vast majority of people are decent. The reality is that the elderly themselves are distressed to see the anticipated nest-egg disappear because they are living “too long”.
For the record my late mother went into home in 1996 and died in 2003 (aged 90), She hated it and led the regulation Irish Mother guilt thing on me at every visit. In truth she stayed with us most weekends.. But it was a genuinely miserable end to her life.
For me………no old peoples home. We all say that, dont we? But for me the saddest thing would be Life becoming a single room and a short walk to the communal dining room and communal TV lounge. And the constant presence of Death. From 1996 to 2003, we frequently saw the empty chairs.
Life as Restriction has no appeal. Here in this house, the photographs, stamp collection, postcards, the fridge magnets, the toy soldiers, the computer, the books, the essays, the football programmes, the autographs, the memorabalia are………….evidence of an expansive sixty years. Arguably it is my……..archive. Essentially there are no 18th century portraits on a grand staircase as evidence of the fact that I am “Somebody”. The greatest Irish insult is “he/she is Nobody”…….literally an invisible person and in essence thats what an Irishman or Irishwoman is. A person who has struggled for centuries to be………visible.
And so the talk of A “Right” (sic) to Die. It worries me. For the simple fact is that every right granted by the Establishment has been for economic reasons rather than principles.
In USA (circa 1810) Slavery was uneconomic. There was talk of the “Rights” of Slaves. Circa 1845 Slavery was economic. Nobody talked about “Rights”. And every Right……..the Right of Women to work, stay at home, vote has all been a response to an economic necessity. Alas the debate in Britain now between those principled people who advocate the Right to Die and those principled people who oppose it……….will be decided by……… (unprincipled) economists
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