Dignitas or not Dignitas

It has been a few weeks since I wrote and more than a few weeks since I have wanted to write - I still mourn for Christina Symanski, and she is still in the news in the US even though she has gone from us. 


Firstly, I am appalled (I know what the English newspapers are capable of!!), at the Daily Mail on-line who has started all this rubbish again about whether Christina took her life because she had a broken heart and makes people question her motives etc, isn't it enough that the poor woman said in her own words she "was living an intolerable life"?


I have read a few articles about this now, to try to make up my own mind how I feel on assisted suicide. I have read a lot about Dignitas in Switzerland and how they assist the suicide of people who want to die and I believe that a cause like Christina's could have been properly assisted with this aim instead of having to take TWO MONTHS to bring about her death, herself.


There are two books that I have read about the case for taking your own life, they are, "Whose Life Is It Anyway" by written by Brian Clark in 1972 and "You Before Me" a novel written by Jojo Moyes last year in 2011.  


I happened to see the movie of 'Whose Life Is It Anyway', in mid 1984 and I wanted to see it again, so, when this topic became crucial to me, I sent for the dvd and watched this fantastic movie, starring Richard Dreyfuss as a sculptor, who is left as a quadriplegic after an automobile accident. He came to the decision to end his life as did Christina, but he was in a hospital and had to get it legally contested in order to do as he wished. He, like Christina, had to not take any medication and basically starve to death, in his case, it was the 7-10 days of horror, he was fortunate to have a good lawyer and hey, this was a movie after all.


In the book, "You Before Me", the hero has decided that his life is intolerable and wants to die after 2 and a half years as a quadriplegic, but, his family asks him to 'give the six months to change his mind'. He agrees, as he wants them to accept that for him, his life 'before' compared to his life 'after', is not a life at all. 


In the book, "You Before Me", by telling us of his daily struggle just to breathe, just to try be comfortable, to sleep when he gets too hot and there is no one about to take of the top blanket, to have an itchy nose and not to be able to scratch, it go in their car to a Doctor's appointment where they have to be like a General in the Army to actually get there and be seen and not to mind too much when people (just curiosity!!) look at them as though they come from another planet! Christina when through that and more!!


In the book, he is still determined to go to Switzerland to have Dignitas help him out of this 'travesty of a life', but he has to wait the 6 months to make sure that his family will keep their end of the bargain. That is something that we can't even imagine happening to us. Can we????


Obviously, no ones family wants them to die because you love that person, but can't you just suspend your belief for just a moment to look at this person objectively? To just know that they aren't doing this for any other reason than life is just too hard, painful, and has no dignity at all.


I don't know what I want to or can do, but seeing this lovely, and intelligent young woman, who is torn by her diving into a pool one warm night 6 years ago and ending up in life as a quadriplegic, driven to death in a most horrible way, has so affected me, that there MUST be something that we as compassionate, human beings, can do about it.