Watching my grandmother slide helplessly into the dark mental abyss of dementia and then be lost inside it for years made me realize that it is downright inhumane to not offer end of life assistance to people.
On one hand, I had a similar experience with my grandfather. He eventually couldn't even remember to speak English, he reverted to his childhood language. When we translated, he thought I was a childhood friend of his, not his grandson. It was awful
But sometimes he would be so lucid and remember everything. It was so awful thinking that "he is still in there" the idea of him choosing to end it and not have those last few times to talk.. I dunno
During one of those lucid times was the most deep and important conversation I ever had with him. He understood what was happening and it gave him the freedom (courage?) to talk about things he'd never talked to me about before. It was so important to me as a young man, I cannot imagine if he had signed an end of life form and I never got to see that side of him before he passed
Selfish of me I know. But still. Maybe this really just highlights how important it is for people to really talk to one another when they are alive
As ardent a supporter of assisted death as I am, I really don't think there's any other way to feel about it. You illustrate exactly why these types of choices will never be easy.
Yeah, to clarify I do support it. I think reducing suffering is a noble goal and allowing people to choose not to suffer needlessly is overall a good thing
But it definitely is not cut and dry and I can see why some people are extremely resistant to the idea
Where I currently live, terminally ill nearing their end often fall in a pattern of eating and drinking less and less, to the point of having nothing (not even water). This process of dying takes 1-2 weeks(!). Longer if some liquid is still imbibed.
This is a common ending of a terminally ill process and apparently seen as humane. Though I think if anyone treated their dog like that, we'd report them for animal abuse.
I don't have good answers to most questions surrounding this topic. But I'd like to get to a point where people are treated as humanely as their pets in their final period. And I can't even tell you the current practice isn't, just that it does not at all feel that way to me.
> Where I currently live, terminally ill nearing their end often fall in a pattern of eating and drinking less and less, to the point of having nothing (not even water). This process of dying takes 1-2 weeks(!). Longer if some liquid is still imbibed.
Even just getting to this point is usually a brutal period of pain. Then you have to die like that? It's frankly barbaric.
bit ironic, all this effort to extend life but it turns out that living that long isn't always so great so we start euthanizing folks.
I'm not saying it's wrong or right (I don't have a full opinion on the matter yet) but it seems very indicative of human endeavors more generally. Like a big a cosmic joke.
