Tony Nicklinson loses High Court right-to-die case

In the old days the family doctor would have come around to visit regularly. They’d know you, they’d know your family. There’d be veiled discussions about what the patient and family wanted as the condition worsened, nothing said directly, but everyone understood what was being said. When the time came that it was clear that patient had had enough or, where the patient was in a vegetative state the family had had enough, then there seemed to be an exchange of thoughts unspoken, an agreement without words and the doctor would ask the family to leave him alone with the patient for a little while, maybe asking for a cup of tea. When the family returned to the room the patient would be “asleep” then died peacefully with their family around them. No one ever asked the doctor if he’d given the patient anything but they understood and were grateful.

Then we entered the era of the blame culture, the litigation culture, and doctors no longer “helped” in this way. And of course we had Harold Shipman, Beverley Allitt and others, the medical profession is not immune to psychopaths, so now no doctor felt able to bring a peaceful end to those that desired it. At the same time medical science was advancing to the point where we believed that almost anything could be cured, and we expected the doctors to do everything possible to save our loved ones without actually considering the price. Technology also advanced to the point where we felt that people could still lead useful lives no matter what their physical difficulties…and they can, Stephen Hawking is living proof of that. However in our “progress”, our “advances”, we seem to have lost sight of the human element. Yes there are those that can accept their new circumstances, even embrace them, and go on to live a life that is full enough for them, and no one should deny them that right. However we shouldn’t expect everyone to be the same. Some become shells, alive but not living. Others are very much alive in that their brain functions as well as ever, but their new situation is intolerable to them and always will be. It is cruel to make those people suffer a life that they do not want because we have “progressed”. That is not progression, that is inhumane.

We are of a generation that is used to being in control and having choices. The pill gave us the choice of when to start a family, how big a family we wanted. We choose our schools, we choose our careers…no more becoming a carpenter because your father was a carpenter and his before him. We no longer marry for life no matter how good or bad the marriage, if we’re not happy we have a choice..and so on. Throughout our lives we have had choices put in our hands. We are a generation that has had choices in almost every aspects of our lives, it stands to reason now that we want to choose when and how we die. It would be humane to allow those who are ill or in intolerable pain to make that choice (with the appropriate safeguards of course); it is inhumane to deny that choice.