Is Dying a Right?
Voluntary euthanasia is gathering momentum
Twenty years ago, when I first moved to France, I worked part-time for an elderly couple doing a bit of gardening along with various other odd jobs. Their story had already become a familiar one to me. A late middle-age couple moves to France tempted by a slower lifestyle and much cheaper property prices. So cheap, in fact, that they can’t resist buying something much larger than they need.
Two decades later, they have become frail and suddenly the delightful old stone house has turned into something of an albatross around their necks. There was a horde of these couples and they provided an easy way for me to transition into a new country where I didn’t speak the language. They also made me a firm believer in only ever owning small properties.
I was still working for this couple when the husband died. Frail, and often lonely, the widow joined the Right to Die Society. She had, she decided, no reason to go on living. The whole concept made for fascinating conversations whenever I was with her.
Once a month, she would climb into her little car and jaunt off to her meeting with ‘the society’ as she called it. There, over coffee and cake, she and a dozen or so other would-be dead people would sit around and discuss their rights which were being blocked by French legislation.
They would also exchange tips and advice on how to seamlessly leave this planet.
Euthanasia was banned in France but was legal in several neighboring countries. As a result, a sort of euthanasia tourism had become established. For my client, this was a tempting option, but it was expensive and you needed to pay in advance.
Wisely, the purveyors of this service had anticipated that if they provided a pay later scheme, they might have some trouble calling in their debts.
We would spend hours talking about this. The old lady was keen on the concept but could never quite summon up the courage to commit to the act, and I felt she was looking at me to talk her out of it.
You know your life is a mess when you look to me to be the voice of reason.
At the time, I had quite strong feelings on the subject. Now, many years later, I am less sure of those feelings. It is not that I have acquired a sudden desire to end it all, or to start taking coffee and cake with ‘the society’. It is simply that as you get older, many of the views that you once held so firmly suddenly become slightly more blurred. One or two of the many life coaches and lifestyle gurus on this platform might want to take note of that.
France, like many other countries, is revisiting the idea of voluntary euthanasia. The big stumbling block is the church for who this is a line in the sand that they will not cross — for the moment. I have watched the Church of England for many years and have noticed that lines in the sand erode over time. Gay congregants, same-sex marriage and women priests are just some of the areas where that church has had to suddenly play catch up to society. Can the Catholics hold out?
I was not around when my client died of natural causes and without assistance from her society friends. I was in Bordeaux where my wife was dealing with serious health issues and voluntarily leaving this earth was the last thing on our troubled minds.
The Federation of Right to Die Societies is a large organization with branches in many countries throughout the world. One thing I found most interesting is that the majority of those countries are the wealthier ones. There are hardly any in Africa.
Is it that the poor are too busy fighting to stay alive to start looking for ways to die, or have the better off simply lost sight of how precious life is?
I am still not sure where I stand on this issue. I have no desire to end my life prematurely, but I am not suffering constant pain augmented by the brutal cruelty of loneliness. What I did learn through this experience, is that clinging dogmatically to an opinion isn’t always the best approach. I have seen enough suffering in recent years not to condemn anyone for wanting to end their own.
Thank you for reading!
If you want to read more of my writings, check out the following articles.
- As Goliath Laughs
- The Game of Snakes and Adders
- I Don’t Want to Get Rich but I Do Want to Change the World
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