Terry Pratchett- Choosing to Die

[bitomato]

I am sorry I am not in the right region to actually see the documentary. Saw a bit of the interview with Jeremy Paxman/ Paxton and Terry Pratchett and read the article about the fact that Terry wants that choice for himself, now that he is diagnoses with early onset alzheimers.

$15Eagle- I was not referring to coma patients. I watched the Sea Inside years ago and I am well aware of the right to choose involved in assisted suicide. But I do think alot more work has to be done on the thought processes involved in getting a terminal diagnosis. Psychologists cannot truly get a handle on the innner workings of the spirit that gives up. The stats are there but the research is also being done and people are beating the stats on living with terminal illness.

I appreciate my views- personal are at one spectrum regarding what I view as the right to life. However, as a therapist, I do know that when life is broken down into not being able to toilet yourself, choose your own meals, be the shadow of who you once were............ it is a battle to help that person find purpose in their life.

I just don't see Terry Pratchett being any less the talented man he was or is at late stage alzheimers. He is concerned about the burden he will place on family and the quality of life he will lose. And I just think that as a race (human) that is where we fail people. Because we prefer to put a price on ending a life 10,000 with dignity- rather than working towards helping a person live and die naturally with humanity.

[BridgesAndBalloons]

I think Terry Pratchett is managing to live around his illness. He's unable to type but he still writes with the aid of a personal assistant (or similar I forgot his 'title') So at the moment it's manageable. But if it progresses to the stage when he can't do what he loves (writing)I don't know if any other reason or purpose for living will come anywhere near what writing is to him. He'd have to find some other passion that was pretty great otherwise it would come a very poor second, I feel but who knows, he might, never say never and all that.

[Dreaming.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bitomato

However, as a pro-lifer, I personally think the issue is people not wanting to care, see suffering and do something to make a person's last years humane.

I'm sorry, I think that's bullshit. Whilst that certainly may be one reason, that's certainly not the only reason. I don't want to die like that because I don't want to die not knowing my own family, not knowing where I am or who I am or how to look after myself. I don't want to die not being able to take care of myself and being totally and completely reliant on other people. That's not to do with people not caring, that's to do with my feelings about being able to be independent.

Whilst I can appreciate you're pro-life (aka anti-choice), and whilst I also think that you come from a good grounding in therapy, I think it's quite a narrow view to suggest that the issue is purely external (i.e. to do with those around you) than internal (i.e. how you feel about yourself).

With medical advances, I genuinely do think that length of life is given priority above all else - in most respects rightly, but in a few respects wrongly. It's all very well saying that the body will give up when the time is right, but that defies most medical advances in recent years. It's good to give people a sense of purpose, obviously, and it's bloody brilliant to try to let people die in a humane and positive way - but I do think that in quite a few cases that doesn't happen, and that's no fault of the people around them, but rather the nature of the particular disease and the way we approach disease and illness (in a medical sense) more generally now.