A lifelong friend has a father with alzhiemers. The old man has been living with his son and has started to get temperamental and violent, so, for the safety of himself and his wife, my friend has finally placed his dad in a nursing home.
It's causinhg my friend a lot of grief because he feels like he's deserting the old man. All of his friends have told him that his dad moved out of the house a long time ago - what's left is the shell
Maybe I'm projecting, but I've known the old man for the better part of my life and I know he wouldn't want to continue to live this way - his mind is just about gone, but the body of this robust guy lives on - I think he'd rather be dead. I know that I don't want to go out this way - a mindless piece of meat, burden to both family and society.
Which brings me to my point.
A woman has the "right" to choose an abortion, yet society has denied the elderly the "right" to die in peace and with dignity.
Dr Kevorkian was a true hero, and some politician finally found a way to shut him up, and no new hero has stepped forward.
Some churches tell people that suicide would condemn their souls, yet these same churches laud the hero who commits suicide by placing his life in danger for a higher good - and maybe that's true -In my mind, the higher good is to remove the burden of caring for a mindless and possibly dangerous husk from family and society so that they can spend their resources on something more worthwhile such as day care.
After three score years, I've determined that when my times comes I want to go quietly into the night - and I want the state to ease my family of any burden by assisting me when the time comes.
It's time for society to recognize that giving the elderly the right to an assited death is the right thing to do. It's time to debate where, when and how this can happen.
What do you think?
It's causinhg my friend a lot of grief because he feels like he's deserting the old man. All of his friends have told him that his dad moved out of the house a long time ago - what's left is the shell
Maybe I'm projecting, but I've known the old man for the better part of my life and I know he wouldn't want to continue to live this way - his mind is just about gone, but the body of this robust guy lives on - I think he'd rather be dead. I know that I don't want to go out this way - a mindless piece of meat, burden to both family and society.
Which brings me to my point.
A woman has the "right" to choose an abortion, yet society has denied the elderly the "right" to die in peace and with dignity.
Dr Kevorkian was a true hero, and some politician finally found a way to shut him up, and no new hero has stepped forward.
Some churches tell people that suicide would condemn their souls, yet these same churches laud the hero who commits suicide by placing his life in danger for a higher good - and maybe that's true -In my mind, the higher good is to remove the burden of caring for a mindless and possibly dangerous husk from family and society so that they can spend their resources on something more worthwhile such as day care.
After three score years, I've determined that when my times comes I want to go quietly into the night - and I want the state to ease my family of any burden by assisting me when the time comes.
It's time for society to recognize that giving the elderly the right to an assited death is the right thing to do. It's time to debate where, when and how this can happen.
What do you think?