A personal view (Euthanasia)

Member Name: pussycat

Product:	Euthanasia
Date:	21/09/00 (2718 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Dignified, prevents drawn out suffering, could be medically administered

Disadvantages: Potential for abuse, moral considerations

This is not going to be my usual balanced and dispassionate type opinion (ha ha!) but it is a personal view which may provide some insight into euthanasia from someone who has had to consider it as a real possibility.

My mother died of Huntingdon's chorea which is a hereditary disease which is like a particularly unpleasant combination of Altzheimers and Parkinsons - basically you suffer total mental and physical degeneration. This process can be rapid (one to two years) or gradual (ten years or more). Believe me, it is harrowing in the extreme to watch someone suffering from this disease slowly go insane and lose control of all their bodily functions. The even more unpleasant aspect to this for the sufferer is that the process is gradual - in your moments of coherance you understand exactly what is happening to you. There is no cure.

On top of watching my mother die from this disease as a child and witnessing the total distruction of the members of my family because of this, I have had to face the added trauma of knowing that I might develop this disease.

There is a test but I don't want it. I have a fifty fifty chance of having the disease and it rarely develops before the age of thirty (I am 27). If a person makes it to forty without developing the symptoms, they are pretty much in the clear. My rationale for refusing the test is that if it is positive I am going to spend the next few years waiting for the symptoms to set in - the only possible reason to take the test is for the relief of a negative result but I just couldn't cope with knowing that I am going to die in what I consider to be the most horrendous way imaginable.

So what has this to do with euthanasia? Basically, if I develop the symptoms I want to die before the tremors, the lost of control and the mental debilitation set in. I do not want to put my husband, father and friends through the agony of watching me rot away and, more selfishly, I ce
rtainly don't want to go through it.

This disease is terminal and the death is slow and agonising. Why should I spend may five or ten years with no quality of life, waiting to go insane? Death will be inevitable so I would like the dignity of a peaceful death so that the people I love can remember me as I am.

I cannot believe that a civilised society allows people with terminal diseases to endure slow and painful deaths rather than to make an informed decision whilst they still have the full use of their mental capabilities. Suicide is extremely prevalent in the early stages of Huntingdons and I can certainly understand why. But why should anyone have to resort to suicide alone rather than a controlled death administered by a doctor so that they can slip away peacefully surrounded by their relatives?

I do appreciate that there are strong moral objections to euthanasia (one of my difficulties is that I am also a Catholic so I am very well aware of the moral dilemma) but I still feel that euthanasia is the only compassionate way to deal with people with diseases such as Huntingdons. Also, there is the issue of where you draw the line and I'm afraid that I don't know the answer to that.

All I do know is that anyone who has watched a parent die as I did and how has had to face for years that they may die in the same way has certainly thought the issue through and that is why I am firmly in favour of euthanasia.

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