One would expect general approval of the humane and compassionate
aim of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. There is, indeed,
ample evidence of rapidly growing support in this country
and overseas. But as the campaign to legalise voluntary euthanasia
gathers support and momentum, so does the campaign of our
opponents.
Most people know of someone whose life has
ended in distressing circumstances, and to whom death was a
happy release.
Prolonged periods of pain are not the only distress some
people have to suffer: feelings of suffocation, of nausea,
of misery or of being desperately ill cannot always be relieved
by pain killers or sedatives.
Victims of cancer often have to suffer severe and continuous
distress. Pain can be reduced by the repeated use of narcotics
and sedative drugs, but often at the cost of constipation,
nausea, deterioration of the personality and other distressing
side-effects.
In addition to pain, cancer patients may have to suffer the
mental misery associated with the presence of a growth, the
physical obstruction of the bowels or incontinence and the
utter frustration that makes each long day and night a death
in life.
Diseases of the nervous system often lead to crippling paralysis
or inability to walk, to severe headaches, to blindness and
to the misery of bed sores. A stroke patient may be conscious
but helpless.
There is a strong case, based on common-sense and compassion,
for granting the wish of terminal patients for a merciful
release from prolonged and useless suffering.
Concern about the actual process of dying, not the fact of
dying, worries people. It is the fear of being kept alive
in a pitiful condition, which leads people to the conclusion
that death would be preferable.
The late Reverend Leslie Weatherhead, the prominent Methodist,
profoundly stated:
"I sincerely believe that those that come after us will
wonder why on earth we kept a human being against his own
will, when all the dignity, beauty and meaning of life have
vanished: when any gain to anyone was clearly impossible,
and when we should have been punished by the state if we had
kept an animal alive in similar physical conditions."
What Can You Do?
