Must our final years be torture

Promoted by Brendan; paragraph from within text copied to top to introduce topic.

When the New York Times printed this story last week "A heartfelt appeal for a graceful exit " it struck a chord, that I wanted to amplify here. The chord is both personal, for me in the not too distant future, and my Aunt, who will turn 105 this month.

In my youth, and I was born in 1940, there were many such unspoken social mores that were confirmed not by votes in Congress, but rather by their not being on the agenda at all. Homosexuality was a taboo, expressed no better than the book, "Advise and Consent" where exposure of such activity by a high official lead not to defiance and a book deal, but suicide.

Negroes knew their place, as did women, Jews, college students, and the unmarried who found themselves pregnant. While there are some such as Trent Lott who may feel that "we would have avoided all these problems" if we had only elected Strom Thurman, the Dixicrat, President in 1948; we didn't. The multiple social revolutions of the late twentieth century took place, and my world was transformed.

We didn't avoid all of those "problems" rather we dealt with them, brought them into the open, and in the process divided our country as it had never been divided except during the cataclysm of our Civil War. I wrote yesterday about Mitt Romney's resignation speech, which was an attempt to re fight the culture wars, as he takes a step back waiting for the next election.

Blacks, Gays, Women, and those with unwanted pregnancies all share a common quality, among each group are vital active individuals who could take the lead in their own liberation. The group that remains, the elderly, the sick, the dying, are by definition without such personal capacities. The woman who was subjected to a back alley abortion, made infertile or infected, can live to express her outrage and be the nucleus of change. The sick terminally ill woman who is forced to endure physical and psychic pain will never tell her story.

When the New York Times printed this story last week "A heartfelt appeal for a graceful exit " it struck a chord, that I wanted to amplify here. The chord is both personal, for me in the not too distant future, and my Aunt, who will turn 105 this month.

While this comes under the rubric of assisted suicide, it really goes beyond it. Assisted suicide, exemplified by the Oregon Death with Dignity Act" is only for those facing imminent death. And such a death must be for a somatic disease that allows the individual to make an informed demand close to the time of their anticipated death. None of laws similar to this go to what this article describes and what I will describe here. And the Oregon law, tested, accepted and confirmed by two referendums in the state, would probably be overturned by todays Supreme Court.

A few months ago I described
my Aunt's moving to an assisted living center, one that is close to having the services of a nursing home. Let me admit, that when she turned 100, and was still taking care of herself in her apartment, I took pride in her. Now things are changing, I want to help her in a way that can only be achieved by a larger movement. I can only help my Aunt Lena, and the thousands like her now, and the millions who will be in her situation by changing the values of a country.

If I hadn't lived through such change it would seem like a hopeless task. But I remember when the thought that a majority of Americans would support homosexual marriage (the word Gay hadn't been coined) would have been considered insanity. And that we would be having an election where one of the major parties would have a Black or Woman Presidential candidate equally outside of the realm of the possible. But, once the barriers of inertia, the power of tradition, the comfort of continuity of values was broached, the process of open thinking took hold.

We have a value, a social norm, that tacitly states that an individual does not have the right to take his or her own life. It is reinforced by law and organized religion. The very expression of such an goal, is seen as evidence of depression, a medical condition that should be treated. My Aunt is healthy; she has normal blood pressure, average cognitive skills for someone her age, hears and sees well, and is able to walk with a walker.

She could live another five years, easily. The problem is she doesn't want to. While her memory is average for her age, that isn't very good. She cannot keep up with current events, or remember a conversation for more than a few hours. This makes developing new friendships, were they potentially available, impossible. While, her new setting provides companionship, as she says, the people are all sleeping in front of the communal television. She is as isolated as she was in her own apartment.

There is a multilevel shelf in the front of her bed, with pictures of her family--one about a century old of her parents and brother and sister, my mother. She cannot work the Television except for a single channel since the onset of digital has made it too complicated, so she has only the pictures to look at.

Aunt Lena has never complained about her life. She had no children, thus my closeness to her, and took care of her mother until she died in her late 80s. Whenever I talk to her, we live across the continent, she always ends the conversation with "have a good life," knowing that her end could come at any time.

But that end will probably be painful and violent. She has prepared all instructions not to take extraordinary steps to keep her alive, and she has a living will and power of attorney to my sister. She has done all that can be done to facilitate an easy exit. But in all probability, she will not die in her sleep. There will be an emergency, and she will be rushed to the hospital. She will likely know what she should never have to know, terror.

And I will not be there, nor will my sister, nor her few remaining family members. She will die among strangers, at a time not of her choosing. And by the way, if she lingers for a week or two, there will be a transfer of funds, perhaps tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars from the public coffers to the medical establishment, while she suffers.

It need not be this way. Aunt Lena wants to leave, as she has told me specifically and clearly. I even have it on video, just in case some eager district attorney wants to make a name for himself in conservative circles. Oh, I know, it won't happen with my aunt, but the principle applies whether a person is a hundred years old or sixty years old, depending on the illness. Any Doctor who concurs with my, and my Aunt's sentiments would be risking too much to implement them

Death in America is still in the stage of back alley abortions before the social revolutions of the second half of the last century. While I am aware of the slippery slope theory, the possible unintended consequences of by allowing individual autonomy to end life, we tacitly condone social pressure to do so by those who consider such life inconvenient.

This is an important issue. It transcends and intertwines the question of universal health care, asking who will be in charge, the people or the medical establishment. Doing nothing, accepting the status quo, simply should not be an option.

(Posted in substance at Dailykos, under "Must my 104 year old aunt suffer")
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