I'm feel very strongly that the right to die should be added to the list of basic human rights. Unfortunately it is not a right that many people have.
Warning: The rest of this post is quite grim but mostly deals with medical and legal issues.
There are quite a few countries (and some USA states) that allow assisted dying. It's been legal in some places for decades and worked very well. A lot of groups who disagree with it on principle spread all sorts of rubbish about how the system is abused, for example by relatives who stand to inherit a lot from an old person who dies. But this abuse has never become widespread. Sometimes the media mis-report cases too. So there's a lot of confusion about it, but the evidence is overwhelming that it works very well.
Because I've often encountered some confusion over this, I think it's worth giving some definitions:
Euthanasia: When someone is killed by
someone else, legally, but without their consent. For example when an unconscious patient with an incurable condition is taken off life support and that has been authorised by a court.
Assisted dying: When someone kills
themselves, legally, with the help of medical professionals. In places where this is legal, the process is usually that the doctor hands a cup of strong barbiturates to the person, and the person drinks it voluntarily, falls asleep and dies. A typical situation in which someone might choose to do this is when they have a painful, debilitating and incurable health problem and they decide they'd rather die at a time of their own choosing than endure pain and a very poor quality of life for many years.
What I'm writing about here is assisted dying, not euthanasia.
I feel strongly about this partly because it's personal. I've seen family members suffer greatly because they do not have the right to die. I, myself, will suffer immensely because of a health condition I have.
Old Age Care
In the UK, most people die from starvation. This is actually what happens when people die from "natural causes" or "old age". They become too weak to swallow food and their nutritional intake reduces until something happens like their heart stops. Typically it takes a few weeks or months. Older people tend to have a lot of other health conditions. Maybe they've had a stroke or heart attack. Or they have cancer too. But in general, the last few weeks/months of a person's life involve starvation. You can read more about this in this book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-We-Die-Sherwin-Nuland/dp/009947641X
How We Die is a classic of medical writing. It’s at once scientific and accessible, precise and philosophical, elegant and blunt. ... his insights sparkle as much now as they did twenty-five years ago. They address not only how we die, but also how we can live. -- Andrew Solomon
How We Die teaches and gives us the courage to come to terms with our own death. As difficult as the facts may be, it shows us they are less frightening than our imagination. It is a book that should be read by all. -- Julia Samuel, author of Grief Works
In the UK, old age care has a strong focus on respecting the wishes of the individual even if, for example, they refuse treatment that might make them more comfortable or prolong their life. However, this respect stops at the point where the old person says "I'm done, I'd like to die now". I've seen it happen. The room goes silent for a moment. And then everyone carries on as if those words were never spoken. The doctors and nurses continue to talk about respecting the patients wishes even though clearly the law prevents them from doing so. Therefore the oldie is forced to slowly wither away for another few weeks or a month or two. It's distressing (and expensive) for all concerned.
Choosing to Die
With regard to my own situation: I was diagnosed with a slow moving cancer about 12 years ago in my late 30s. It's a cancer that usually emerges much later in life. So typically people die from "old age" before the cancer gets them. In my case, it emerged much earlier, and the cancer will almost certainly have enough time to kill me. Currently there is no cure for it. I've had several years worth of chemo already. There's an operation that might also help. But none of this is guaranteed to give me a decent quality of life. The chemo cannot go on forever because while it slows the cancer down it also harms my body in other ways. The operation might work very well and put the cancer in remission for many years. But it also might kill me. Or leave me with ongoing painful, debilitating illnesses.
While suicide is not illegal in the UK, there are severe legal consequences if you talk to anyone about it before doing it. If someone talks to a therapist about it, the therapist has a legal obligation to report this and medical services can lock the person up and prevent them from killing themselves. If someone talks to a family member about it and that family member does not report the conversation to a medical professional, they could be prosecuted for aiding a suicide - which is illegal. While these things do not happen easily, quickly or very often, they are a very real consequence of the current laws. So anyone in the UK who feels that they would rather die is forced to do it alone, without any medical help, without the comfort of friends and family. They can't even confidentially talk to a therapist about it to get the help they might need to change their minds! As a result, they may attempt suicide and be unsuccessful, and whether they are successful or not it comes as a massive shock to the family. This situation is barbaric and inhumane in my view.
In short, people like me are forced,
against their will, to endure immense discomfort, pain, distress and mental anguish, to satisfy the needs of others.
Remember we're talking here about voluntary death. If someone's religion or personal values mean they want to carry on living no matter how difficult that gets, no-one is saying they have to go down the assisted death route. But for those people to support laws that take that choice away from others is inhumane.
Changes to the Law in the UK
In the UK, in spite of a longstanding and growing majority of public support for an assisted dying law, the parliament keeps rejecting it. In recent years, three bills have been put through parliament, all voted out or failing at committee stage. A new bill has been put forward and is slowly making its way through the parliamentary process. Details of it, and a good write up of the arguments for and against, and the outcome of previous bills can be found here:
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/assisted-dying-bill-hl/
Progress of the bill itself can be tracked here:
https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/2875
The bill is based mainly on the laws from the US state of Oregon, which has allowed assisted dying for about 25 years now quite successfully.
In the words of Baroness Meacher, who created the bill:
"This law would help a small but significant number of dying people avoid unwanted suffering at the end of life but would also provide protection and reassurance to those living with a terminal illness that this option will be available to them if the worst should happen. Assisted dying would not be a substitute for palliative care, but an additional option alongside it; dying people need excellent palliative care and the option of assisted dying in the event that they find their suffering unbearable."
If you are a UK voter and in favor of assisted dying, I would strongly urge you to talk to your MP and tell them you want them to vote for this bill when the opportunity arises.
After all that... In relation to the original post...
I think it's understandable that people have a fear of dying and societies create laws to protect life. It's also understandable that we would strive to find medical cures and treatments that can help people live longer. But the idea that people
should strive to live as long as possible regardless of circumstance, and indeed be forced to do so, is ridiculous. There's no shame at all in living in a way that shortens one's life. Once we get over that hurdle, we can have a meaningful discussion about
how people live.
