Musing On Assisted Suicide

Is it ever justifiable? If so, under what circumstances?

My friend Lora, whose mother, Barbara, died last week, came for lunch today. After we devoured our extra-extra-cheese pizza — followed by a triple-chocolate-cookie chaser — Lora related the events of her mother’s final day.

Barbara, per her wishes, had been discharged from her latest futile hospital stay, with arrangements for in-home hospice care.

The following morning, demoralized from four years of sundry chemotherapies with diminishing returns, Barbara summoned her husband — John — and Lora to her bedside.

“I’m done,” she said. “Today’s the day. Let’s get the show on the road.”

Barbara informed Lora and John that she intended to consume her entire stash of morphine and oxycontin. She told them to gather the bottles from the dresser and bring her a large glass of water.

They complied. They sat with Barbara as she swallowed the pills and remained with her as she drifted off.

It took her several hours to die. Toward the end of the course of Barbara’s coma, the hospice nurse paid a visit. Lora and John informed her that Barbara had purposefully taken an overdose.

The nurse berated them for declining to talk her out of it. Nonetheless, she sat with John and Lora for the subsequent hour as Barbara proceeded to draw ever shallower breaths … until, at last, she expired.

“It was her wish,” the nurse said, as she logged her final note:

Cause of death: cancer.