Annette Pereira: There's much more to death than dying

Death is not something we choose or control, no matter how much we try. Photo / Supplied

Opinion

The Commercial Approvals Bureau has decided to give provisional permission to Exit International to screen a television advertisement advocating for euthanasia.

The same advertisement was banned in Australia and Canada a couple of months ago.

It shows a sick man saying, "Life is all about choices. Like, I chose to go to university ... like I chose to marry Tina ... What I didn't choose was being terminally ill. I didn't choose to starve to death because eating is like swallowing razor blades ... I've made my final choice, I just need the Government to listen."

Those who support euthanasia say that merciful doctors would help people end their life under these circumstances.

A few months ago a dying doctor hit the front page of the newspaper when he petitioned New Zealand for compassion, and a law change. This is where the rubber hits the road. What on earth do we do with it?

Historian Phillip Aries has written about the way death has been understood in Western culture over time. He says that it is only fairly recently in history that we have begun to see death as a great enemy that can be fought and put off.

He says we are focused on prolonging life, when once the focus was on dying well.

The death-bed would be surrounded by people, including children. The dying person would perform rituals and would prepare themselves for whatever was to come.

Recognising this history, some have argued that it is not euthanasia but our modern obsession with holding on to life for as long as we can that is the anomaly. Euthanasia is the contemporary way to die with "control" and "dignity".

I find this argument initially compelling, but ultimately just not good enough. Our inability to face the horror of death must be confronted at both ends. Prolonging life at all costs is not what we should be aiming for.

Euthanasia debates challenge us because they dare to confront that sacred cow. But equally, hastening death so that we can meet it on our own terms is another form of denial and another attempt to control that uncontrollable thing - the end of life.

The debate over euthanasia is difficult ground. The arguments on both sides have been well-rehearsed. There is no ideal scenario. I do not pretend to know clearly where lines about life and death should be drawn, although I do think there are lines and where they rest matters. What concerns me perhaps the most in this debate is the way that advocates of euthanasia rest their arguments on a person's "right to choose".

Death is not something we choose or control, no matter how much we try. Our much-touted values of "liberty" and "choice" do not work in this territory. Choice runs out here.

Death is also not about an individual. It is intensely personal, but like life, death is public. We are connected to one another - deeply connected. The poet John Donne wrote: "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."

A woman who I called Aunty died a few weeks ago. She died awfully and slowly, and eventually in a hospital room after a few weeks in the house where her daughter was living.

She spent her days with a cat on her bed, which I like to picture - she always loved animals. I didn't see her after she got very sick. She didn't want to see anyone really. Her daughter said we wouldn't have recognised her because her face was swollen and red and hairless from the treatment she had been on.

She was 52 - the same age as my mother. I am gutted. Each time I think of her I feel a sickness in my gut that I have never felt before. I wish she hadn't died. I wish she hadn't died painfully.

For a few black days after she died, life felt like a wretched joke. My Aunty's death was not just about her. It was about an entire community.

"Exit International" are welcome to try to build their case for why they support the legalising of euthanasia. But an argument that is based on "choice" simply doesn't hold sway.

About a month ago, at a wedding, I sat beside a woman who is a hospice nurse. Each day she confronts these hard questions of life and death, extending compassion and love for as long as life lasts.

She said her job was not to hasten or delay death, but to care for people as they are dying. I suspect that she and her colleagues would have a lot to offer as we look at questions about the end of life.

Perhaps our focus should be on improving hospices, on strengthening palliative care and on caring for the very ill for every breath they have left to them.

Annette Pereira is from the Maxim Institute, an independent research and public policy think tank.