I’m still catching up with news and posts that came out during my unplanned hiatus. Last week, the Heresy Corner published a guest blog entry by Clair Lewis, a prominent disability rights activist in the UK.
Below is the intro to “My life is unbearable – don’t fix it, just kill me“:
Care staff had to help me out of bed this morning. It happens increasingly often these days, as my incurable disease and my unfit body’s slow ageing makes its mark. Some mornings, being lifted hurts so much I cry. It’s only a matter of time before I end up wet in bed and need a commode and then a nappy. I regularly tip coffee down myself in the mornings because I can’t hold a mug, and I still can’t type properly because it takes two hours for my hands to warm up. I am only 36.
I’m pretty lucky actually. I am reminded almost every year by a social care manager that if I was childless I wouldn’t qualify for care at all – in which case I’d be lying here alone with a bladder full to bursting, paralysed by pain and stiffness. Instead of writing and drinking coffee, I’d be trying to work out how to make it to the toilet before I wee. My life, what there was of it, would be pretty unbearable.
Nobody wants me to suffer. I don’t want to suffer. My friends and colleagues don’t want me to suffer. Neither do my doctors, my care manager, either of my beautiful girlfriends, or my three wonderful kids. If I died tomorrow, it would indeed end my suffering. If I said I wanted to commit suicide when it all gets too much, many people would support me and think the state should do it for me. If I said I wanted to die, would you rage at the state for not offering me a final solution?
Please read the rest of this essay by Clair Lewis at the Heresy Corner.
I read the whole article. I was unable to tell, for a long time, where she was “going”. The end is
a long winding road away from the opening. As a person with severe
CFS/ME, who is a regular reader of NDY News and Commentary, I was waiting for the pun-lines (wonderful typo! but it should read “punch-lines”) which finally came and I was relieved. Love: love of self and loving others is a factor as are the material aids
to making life’s tasks more chosable, as/if possible as can.
AUTONOMY is the key, as well as
the ability to get information and
care. As stated in the article,
those with the least money get the least care. And, I’d add, the least choice.
It’s a great article. Thanks for the link. I have been so pleased with the links, cognitive
glitches and “all”.
Physician-assisted suicide is never the moral choice, regardless of the intent. Montana Supreme Court heard a case this past wk and will determine if physician-assisted suicide is a constitutional right. See http://www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com