Attempt Number 6

Every effort was precise, every move calculated. She moved gracefully, like a panther, to the kitchen counter. The sofa in the next room was inviting, but she wasn’t done yet. She had just one more thing left to do. Placing the envelope on the counter, she picked up her pills. She’d spent a long time accumulating them, from visits to her doctor claiming various illnesses, to over-the-counter pills from every pharmacy in the 10-mile district. She’d hoarded them all, waiting till she had an exorbitant amount. Now was the time to finally use them, all together.

She’d been planning this for 6 months. That was 183 days. 183 days ago, she’d made up her mind that it was high time for her to go. God was taking too long. She was going to have to take matters into her own hands.

She suddenly paused, hesitating. She looked back to her couch, thinking. Was this how she wanted to leave? Was this the last memory she wanted her children to have of her, sprawled on the couch at an awkward angle? Was this the last memory she wanted everybody to have of her?

Coward, a voice in her head hissed.

Why are you doing this? another voice whispered.

Do it! Stop the suffering! What’s the point of living, right?

What’s the point of dying? Get out of this funk, you can do it.

The sooner you realize that people don’t care about you, the more you will understand. Hurry up and get life over and done with!

Quitter, one hissed.

Do it, do it, do it now, the other spat back.

Is this how you want to be seen by everyone? How you want to be remembered?

Since when did you care about other people?

She made up her mind.

Instead of popping them one by one, she popped all of them at once.

“Let’s see who’s the coward,” she thought savagely. The voice didn’t reply.

She walked from the kitchen counter towards the living room to the sofa when halfway, she collapsed. She never made it to the sofa, and neither did her eyes ever open again.

*No, for goodness sake, I’m not contemplating suicide, nor am I even depressed. I’m just writing about it, that’s all. It’s just a story. I have another draft written where she never did kill herself.*

Euthanasia

Should the state let me choose how and when I die?
Tuesday, 4 November 2008, 12:54 pm | 774 views
Andrew Loh / Deputy Editor

“We need to overcome taboos about death and communicate better — both among ourselves as well as between doctors and their patients,” said Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan last month.

I agree with the minister.

More often than not, we would rather not talk about death, or the possibility of our dying. It is indeed still quite a taboo subject. It is a cultural thing, some say. Couple this with our religious beliefs and it gets very personal, emotional and spiritual as well.

Yet, looking at what the minister has said over the last few years on the issue, I do believe that he is not just looking, simply, to letting Singaporeans choose to die – whether it is through the Advance Medical Directive or legalised mercy-killing, to put it another way. Rather, Mr Khaw has obviously adopted more of a holistic approach than just a simplistic one of whether one should take one’s own life or allow another to do so on one’s behalf.

The main point I believe he is trying to get across, perhaps not very well so far, is one of dying with dignity.

In this, there can be little argument or disagreement with the principle. It is in the definition of the word “dignity” itself, however, which is the bone of contention. Some say that taking one’s own life is not dignified no matter how it is achieved. That the act of suicide or assisted-suicide, whether legal or illegal, through the AMD or legalised euthanasia, is just plain wrong.

“We will go down a slippery slope”, is a phrase used.

While I do agree that there are many – many – issues involved, I am in agreement with Mr Khaw that we should be allowed to “die with dignity”. And that, in my opinion, should be one of the main points of this debate. In this respect, I am glad that the minister is looking into palliative care and palliative medicine and making these more easily-available. A pilot scheme to bring such care to nursing homes will be implemented next year.

More needs to be done, of course. Besides getting doctors themselves to understand the AMD better, the bigger challenge, I feel, is getting the average Singaporean (especially the less-educated and literate) to know what the issues are.

The one thing which we should not fail to address is the notion, already in some people’s minds, that assisted-suicide is directed at the “less-able” or that it is the less-literate and less-educated who will be targeted for “elimination”.

My hope is that the minister will not rush through any changes in legislation but allow as much time as possible for discussion, debate and feedback to take place.

Every life is precious. When the time arrives, and each of us will face this, we will have to decide (if we are able to) how we will die. Personally, to have the choice to decide how I would die is a gift as not everyone gets to have this choice.

Thus, if there were legislation in place which would allow me to do this, to make this choice, and it gives me dignity in my death, I welcome it.

But first, lets address the many issues involved for the concerns are real and important.

Source: The Temasek Review

I sat at the table listening to the grandaunts talking, and discussing. Their discussions eventually and invariably turned upon: death. And how to go off a little more peacefully, if such a thing was possible.

The truth is upon us. Singapore has become an aging population. Solutions to tackle this problem need to be discussed. As the baby-boomers generation turned to an age where they begin taking out CPF than contributing to it, the generation after begins to feel the strain of being caught in-between: having to provide not only for their young un’s but also to their aging parents. One solution that people will inevitably throw out is euthanasia. How sensible is it after all to be spending thousands of dollars on increasingly expensive medical care, and when the person in question dies, as they eventually must, how sensible is it for their next of kin to be riddled with thousands of dollars in debt for hospital and/or medical bills?

It’s a very sensitive and opinionated issue. The government themselves may have their own reasons to not legalize euthanasia. It could also be difficult to say that when a person wishes to commit to euthanasia, whether it is truly a person’s choice or whether there is an ulterior motive behind it. What if the next of kin suddenly comes along complaining that the person who passed on from euthanasia was brainwashed, or was incapable to make his decisions, and said yes to performing euthanasia, what can the government do? Can it be considered a pedestal above suicide? Is it simply another term for suicide?

Mercy killing? Bullshit. Killing is killing, whether merciful or not. Voluntary euthanasia, assisted suicide, all paradoxes of their own. But each person has their own story to tell, stories that defy laws and minds and stirs up the heart. A mother who withholds chemotherapy and treatment to leave the money to her child. A father’s condition that deteriorates to the point where he needs assistance to the most mundane tasks. A grandparent on life support who does not wish to continue that way.

But what happens if it’s involuntary euthanasia? There is always the ethical principle of ‘allowing’ someone to die by unnatural means, even if it is of his or her will.  They can’t bring the dead person back to life. There will always be people to oppose such a suggestion as questionable as euthanasia, just as there will be people who applaud the very same idea.

But as I listened to my grandparents the other day, they said that if this option of euthanasia is legalized, they would definitely take it. They themselves proposed the option of possibly legalizing euthanasia. After all, the day will come where a person’s body deteriorates to a certain point that everyday mundane stuff will need to be taken care of with someone’s help. Why wait around and cause misery not just to yourself but to everyone else who needs to take care of you? They would rather go off with the ‘dignity’. To be remembered just the way they are now, than when they’re sick, dying, and unable to care for themselves. How smart is it, or how reasonable can it be economically to saddle the next of kin with hospital bills and medical debts to pay? Why not just go ahead and allow themselves to go when it is time for them to go?

Some argue that the idea of euthanasia can work, provided that there is a peripheral of a strict set of guidelines to it. To ensure that the person in question is competent and capable to make his or her own decision. To ensure that if the person was stricken by a disease, that it was truly incurable and the person was at the very last stage with no hope for survival. To ensure that the next of kin and all the related family members were provided adequate notice, and approval given on their behalf.

It’s a very difficult choice, and there’s a lot of different sides to it. We have to ask ourselves: can we live with this so-called ‘mercy killing’?