Two people with less than six months to live reveal contrasting views on assisted dying
Warning: This article contains references to suicide.
The case for: I want a good death under the oak tree in my garden
Clare Turner, 59, Devon
I want a good death underneath the oak tree in my garden, with my daughters playing guitar and people chatting in the background. I want to look up at the tree, see birds and insects and feel part of nature.
I live on a farm in Devon where right now the sunflowers are blackened by winter, drooping over in a field where birds feast on their oily seeds. Next year’s vegetables sleep in the soil below – everything that lives ends up dying.
Finding out I have stage four cancer was a shock but I have found acceptance. I hope my energy, my “Clare-ness”, will be released into the natural world to mingle with all those who have gone ahead of me, and all the living things which came before.
When I first told my daughters about my illness, Chloe, my eldest, was terrified about the type of death I would have. She works in a hospital and really wants people to have assisted dying as an option. My other daughter Izzy is fully supportive of that too.
I’ve done a straw poll of friends. One is absolutely against it because of his religious beliefs but others are overwhelmingly in favour of assisted dying.
Clare with her daughters Izzy and Chloe
My grandfather, Arthur Turner, was a campaigner who at the end of his life battled for safe, affordable housing. I don’t have the energy to fight due to my cancer, but I wanted to speak out now because it means a lot to me.
It is extraordinary to me that under our current laws, if we allowed one of the animals on this farm to suffer, a farmer would be prosecuted.
But assisted dying isn’t just about avoiding suffering. I used to be a counsellor working with adolescents around bereavement. There is a difference between the normal, natural process of death and situations where people become traumatised by the manner of it. That affects the brain in a different way.
Clare Turner has stage four cancer
My oncologist told me that without chemotherapy I have months to live. I’m just hanging on for my daughter to get through university but I’ve got no intention of eking out every single second. If the law doesn’t change, I plan to take my own life.
I wouldn’t want to get anyone in trouble, so I would choose to have a lonely death. I don’t think I deserve that. I’d be at home, but the idea of being surrounded by my loved ones and nature and then contrasting that to aloneness… I find that sad.
Philip’s religion informs his stance against assisted dying
The case against: ‘Death isn’t like a video game where you pop back up’
Philip, Midlands.
I want to live until God wants me to die. He will sort that out, not me. I have no idea how it’s going to happen and I don’t want to know.
This world is temporary, and I have a better one coming. I have pancreatic cancer which not only affects my pancreas, but also my lungs. When we were told I had less than six months to live, my wife Pauline couldn’t stop crying. Sitting in the hospital we sung praises to God. It’s now five months, and I’m grateful for this time.
I don’t think people realise death is a one-way journey. It’s not like games that kids have on their consoles where you get killed then pop back up again.
These days, it seems like people are talking more openly about suicide. Thirty-five years ago, one of my neighbours had lymphoma cancer and was given six months to live. He’s now 67 – imagine if he had taken his own life back then.
Philip’s mother died of cancer when he was young
When I was 15, my mother suffered a slow and painful death from breast cancer. I would sit by her bed and pretend to wipe rats off her chest because she thought they were gnawing at her breasts. Two days before she died she prayed, “God, I want you to either heal me or take me”. She died naturally, with dignity.
Medical science has moved on since then. There is no reason why somebody with cancer should die in excruciating pain. Doctors can manage the pain, but the bigger problem is the lack of services in end of life or palliative care. I’ve paid taxes all my life so I see no reason why that care shouldn’t be available for me.
We all feel for those who want assisted dying but if you allow the law to be changed for just a few people, in a short time it becomes wider to include others.
Philip doesn’t want to know when he will die
We can see this in Canada and the Netherlands, where it started off with just people who were terminally ill and now there’s talk of allowing it for people with mental illness, children and even the homeless.
So you start to have a society where life’s value is lessened, where the state gets to decide who has had enough. That is horrendous. It’s not the sort of society I want to live in, or leave behind.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
