Brave choice: Margo MacDonald understands the needs of the temrinally ill.
Margo MacDonald’s End of Life Care Bill is one of the bravest and most dignified acts to come before the Scottish Parliament. You’ll also hear it described as euthanasia or assisted suicide, but I think End of Life Care has a certain dignity about it – which is what it’s all about after all.
Obviously it’s going to be debated and opposed but to my mind I really don’t see how it can be opposed when abortion is legal in this country. Different ends of the life span of humans, but essentially the end result is the same. We do have a need to legislate on a person’s right to choose how and when they die if they have some medical condition, because it already happens, either with or without tacit help from doctors or nurses.
I knew someone who had a terminal disease. A particularly complicated cancer had spread through his body. He was receiving all the palliative care the NHS could offer, but in the long-term, it didn’t look too good. It wasn’t much of a life for someone in his early thirties So one day he was found dead in his car. Toxicology reports showed that he’d taken a cocktail of most of the medicines that he had been prescribed by specialists which resulted in an overdose. Seemed like a simple case of suicide, if there ever was such a thing.
Obviously, family and friends were devastated by this. But afterwards, although people spoke in hushed tones, there was element of understanding. Sort of “Well, what would you do if it was you...” Nobody knows for sure whether or not it was deliberate, but maybe if we had legislation in place that allowed that choice to be made, there would be no need for the hushed tones. There would also be no need for the wrangling with official bodies and insurance companies who don’t pay out death benefits on suicide. Check the small print.
But that’s not the only way people’s lives end. It can also happen with intervention by medical professionals, but fear of prosecution leaves the administration of a slightly higher dose of a painkiller in a particularly murky grey area of medical care and legality. But it does happen. It will happen today in a hospice or a hospital ward somewhere in the country. As one medical expert recently put it: ”The difference between a drug and a poison is basically the dose.”
MacDonald’s bill will not make it compulsory for people to get to a certain point and then have to bite the bullet or the black capsule. It’s about informed choice. Various measures are in the bill to ensure that it doesn’t turn into a conveyor belt of people deciding to kill themselves on a whim.
It will be a question of quality of life. Some will argue that any life will have an inherent quality that makes it worth living, and they are entitled to that view. But some will not see it that way.
I don’t have a terminal illness or an incurable degenerative disease and I can’t tell you how people who do have them feel about their quality of life. I can only rationalise it by what I see. Maybe I’m selfish, but I have seen people with certain conditions and thought: “I hope that doesn’t happen to me.”
The only people who know are those living with these conditions. As Margo MacDonald, who has Parkinson’s Disease, told Holyrood yesterday: “There are many people who have progressive, degenerative conditions that are much more vicious than mine. And they only have to look forward to a very, very unhappy, unpleasant and undignified end of life experience.”
We’re brought up being told that we should live life as best we can, with respect and dignity for ourselves and others. We also know that dying is inevitable. It’s time we gave that respect and dignity to those who find themselves in some of the darkest places life takes you.
David Coyle is the winner of stv.tvs 'Write Factor' competition. His views do not necessarily represent those of STV plc
Last updated: 22 January 2010, 10:52
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