Today’s post is duplicated on both
blogs because its theme concerns everyone.
The poem last appeared on the blogs only
last June, but I am repeating it because readers often get in touch about the
complex, sensitive and highly emotive subject of assisted suicide;
especially after I posted it on the blogs and included it in my last
poetry collection. I have to say, 99% of these have expressed much the same
sentiments as my own. Having said that, everyone will, of course, have their
own views, and almost certainly feel as strongly as I do wherever they stand on this contentious
issue.
Now, according to reports, it
appears that plans for a mobile euthanasia team to assist people to die at home
have been given the go-ahead in Holland. A mobile team of doctors would be the
first in the world to carry out assisted suicides in borderline cases where
family doctors refuse to administer patients with lethal drugs on ethical
grounds. Even so, these doctors will have to comply with the same ‘due care
criteria’ as ‘regular’ doctors.
Many people have pressed for
changes in the law regarding euthanasia here in the UK. Only last week the
Archbishop of Canterbury warned that changes to the law to allow assisted
suicide in the UK would spell “disaster” and a shift in societal attitudes
towards the sanctity of life, it was reported by the Press Association.
How dare these people presume to
deny us the basic Human Right to decide to end our lives when we no longer feel
able to go on living? Whose life is it, anyway?
We have no say in being born, we deserve a say in dying. It is pathetic
that we have a Court of Human Rights that denies us one of the most fundamental
Human Rights of all; the right to have a say in whether we live or die, and in appropriate circumstances be listened to and have
our personal feelings on the matter respected.
No one would deny there have to be
safeguards in place; anyone contemplating suicide is very vulnerable to abuse
by unscrupulous people. I also agree that anyone contemplating such a step
should discuss it with a professional counsellor as well as their immediate
family.
I tried to commit suicide
some 30+ years ago during a severe nervous breakdown. I narrowly survived, and
each day since has been a welcome bonus. I could probably have been talked out
of it had there been anyone at the time in whom I could
confide. Depression alone is no grounds for euthanasia although it may
well seem so to a depressed person at the time.
Where I strongly support assisted
suicide is for people in pain, for whom there is little if any relief, and
those diagnosed with a terminal illness that have no wish to see it through to
the bitter end. It is their choice; while they have every right to
express an opinion, no law, religion or pro-life activist should be
allowed to dictate to us about ending our lives where we
can make a cast iron personal case for doing so; i.e. in the light
of how we see it, not them, and on our terms not theirs. I, for one would
have no hesitation should, for example, my prostate cancer spread and I was
told nothing could be done about it. Close friends are aware of this, and share
my views on the matter. Yet, were such circumstances to arise, they would face
potential imprisonment for helping me end my own life at my own carefully
considered wish. I would
not wish that on them any more than they would wish a lonely death on me.
Dementia is a tricky one. As
regular readers will know, I, personally, share the views publicly expressed by
the author Sir Terry Pratchett who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. I,
too, would not want to sink into the kind of twilight existence that comes
later. But everyone has their own view on the subject. Whatever, that view
should be respected, not dismissed on either a point of law or a religious
belief the person concerned may not even share. Loved ones will,
understandably, want to keep us with them for as long as possible, but love is
also about knowing when to let go...
SOULMATE
I feel my body growing weaker,
active mind starting to lose its
way,
will as stubborn as ever
as I get through each new day
as best I can, tearful
now and then rather than fearful
of coming to the end
of all ends, wishing it could be
on my own terms
My body, once my best friend,
now my jailer, denying me access
to even the simplest things
I need to do, places I’d like to go,
people I want to see
who understand (only too well)
how much harder it is for me
to endure all this, knowing things
can only get worse
How can I be as strong for others
as I want to be when each day sees
the strength draining out of me,
save a sense of spirituality that
keeps
me afloat in a cruel sea
where few dare throw even a straw
for fear the law will not recognize
that how a person lives merits a say
in how he or she dies?
I, Dignity, soulmate to Human
Rights,
would keep the dying too in my
sights
Copyright R. N. Taber 2010
[From: On the Battlefields of Love by R. B. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]
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