Unlike ‘Roamer’ (The Sunday Times, June 19), who was evidently quoting from a newspaper, I was fortunate enough to see the recent BBC documentary Choosing to die on assisted suicide hosted by Sir Terry Pratchett.
Contrary to what ‘Roamer’ tried to impress on us, Sir Terry was and is very much of sound mind. In fact, he is finishing another novel (he already has 60 to his name) and a film.
However, he is a very rational man, who, with the onset of Alzheimer’s, was not looking forward to ending his life in a state of confusion and a burden on his wife.
Also, to get the facts right, the millionaire Peter Smedley did not, as ‘Roamer’ asserts, choose to end his life as a form of protest. What impudent, insulting rubbish!
Mr Smedley was one of three people interviewed by Sir Terry on the issue of assisted suicide. The other two were a 42-year-old man, Andrew, a multiple sclerosis sufferer, and a 50-year-old taxi driver with the same condition; Mr Smedley was suffering from Motor Neurone Disease.
The documentary set out to question the role of society in deciding for a person when they should end their life.
These issues are becoming increasingly important as more and more of us live longer, far longer, some scientists maintain, than our bodies were designed for. They are issues of quality of life and dignity.
In the case of the taxi driver, he was happy to end his days in a hospice. At the time of the filming he could move around in his electric wheelchair. And he was also happy to have a hospice to go to.
In the case of both the 42-year-old and Mr Smedley, they opted for a quick exit.
Andrew, a handsome, charming man, revealed his increasing frustration at his inability to be an independent person, the agony of waking up and crawling out of his bed and across the bedroom floor for the first hour of the day, and the knowledge that things were only going to get worse, much worse.
On his final journey he was accompanied by his mother, who was as distraught as any mother would be but who also understood the man’s deep despair.
Mr Smedley died with his wife by his side.
The saddest part of the documentary was not watching Peter Smedley die, which was in a strange way a very serene moment.
It was the knowledge that neither of them should have gone so quickly. That they did not die at home but in a small cottage built on an industrial estate (Swiss law did not permit Dignitas to have a home in an urban area).
They opted to die earlier rather than later, because, as UK law stands, they were worried that, if left too late, and they required assistance to get to Switzerland, their loved ones could have been implicated in a ‘crime’.
The documentary was very honest, showing both sides of the argument. Sir Terry tells us his wife refused to take part in the documentary, as she feels very uncomfortable with the idea of assisted suicide. He also revealed that he would not “go to the barricades” for people who wanted to die because they had grown weary of living.
It is estimated that 21 per cent of people who die at Dignitas do not have a terminal illness.