The right to a peaceful death

This is a first draft of something I will come back to and edit as regularly as I can. I hope.
Uncle D and Ma, I'm sure you don't mind this. But if you do, let me know and I'll take it down. Love you both.

There is no easy way to put this.

Three years ago, when I was 18, my Uncle and I were placing bright colored tape on all of the appliances in my Grandma’s house: the right setting on the washer and dryer, which button would start the microwave, where to set the oven. This was exactly when I knew that the right to death, or the possibility of euthanasia, assisted-suicide, whatever you want to call it, should exist.

My grandmother, Mary, passed away in the first half of 2013, and that was the happiest moment of the last several years of her life.  

After my Grandpa had died, my Grandma changed. Her entire life had been devoted to her husband, who had struggled through so much before he succumbed to cancer. She was living alone for the first time in literally decades. She was unsure of what to do. My mom would talk to my Grandma on the phone. My Grandma would say it often during arguments: I wish I was dead.

Her struggles only became greater after that. She had lost the one person who meant the most to her in the world, and her life was changing even more radically. She moved out of the home she had been living in for many years because she couldn’t take care of everything herself. She moved into a senior community near where my uncle lived. She was in independent living, but she was not happy.

Then another tragedy struck her life. She began suffering from macular degeneration. She rapidly went from passable vision to being almost entirely blind. She couldn’t even play dominoes in the community because she couldn’t differentiate the dots. She could still “function”, and her mind was still sharp.

There was another noticeable shift in tone. It went from wishing she was dead because she felt like a bother, to her feeling she had nothing left worth living for. And the difference was stark, noticeable.

She sustained by playing solitaire. Any time I would make the trip to go see her, her cards were bent and swollen up from the sheer amount of use. Even that, she confessed, wasn’t much. She’d always chuckle and say, “I don’t even know why I play. I just cheat.” The tape on the washing machine, the microwave, and the oven were so she could prepare her food and wash her own clothes. She was still sharp enough to live by herself. But was she really living? My Grandma was determined that if she must be alive, she would take care of herself.

She was miserable. We all knew she was miserable. My visits visibly enhanced her mood, but I could still feel sadness in her silence, hear desperation in her sentences, and feel her pain just in the way she sat. She felt that she had no real reason to live. Would you?

Philosophically, there are a few ways you could assess. There is no easier way to look at this than a measure of net happiness. She might not have been sure what would happen when she died, but she knew that there was a chance that she’d be reunited with her husband; she knew there was a chance her vision might be restored eternally; she knew that her suffering would be put to an end. Most consequentialists would argue that the benefits outweigh the harms in this suffering woman taking her life.

There is also a Kantian argument about her autonomy. She lacked the physical capability to enact what her mind wanted or could do. She was suffering with not being able to be accountable for herself. She knew that her body was deteriorating. When someone cannot physically be autonomous, even if mentally they are still sharp, what should we do? Are we restoring their autonomy by allowing them to take their lives? I would argue yes.

This is a debate that can be entirely separate of religion as well. When I found out that my Grandma had died, I was upset. I was scared. I believe that when we die, that’s it. There’s the finality of death. And I was upset because I felt that her life had been cut off, and that she was no more. Yet the more I thought about it, the clearer it became: her life wasn’t cut short by her death. Her suffering was put to a stop by her death. Her life was her life, and my family will always remember her greatness.

I don’t know what happens when we die. I know that my Grandma is better off now than she was when she was alive.

I don’t know if my Grandma would have chosen to peacefully end her own life. I know that she deserved the opportunity to choose for herself.