We were talking about the national debate on euthanasia policy and assisted suicide and you said you had an opinion about that?
Yes I do. Yes I have a strong opinion about that. First of all I believe that it is everybody's right to die as it is their right to live. Now there comes a time I'm sure in my own mind that a person, providing they are in their right mind when they decide, not when it perhaps happens but when they decide, has the right to die.
Now I would like to think that if something happens to me that I become completely incapable of enjoying life then I would want someone to do to me what they would do to any ordinary animal. They would if it was a dog and it was suffering and in pain and couldn't be a dog anymore, you would say 'oh pity' and you would take the dog to the vet. I would hope that I could be taken to a doctor or the doctor would come to me, or would be allowed to and would be able to just put me to sleep, because I think life is only tolerable if you're alive.
Now what is being alive, now you know, what is being alive? Being alive, for example, being alive is being, for me, is being me. When I'm no longer me what am I? I'm a vegetable and I don't want to be that I don't want to be here when that happens. We've got to bring pressure on our members of parliament. Maybe not individually because we haven't got the effort or we don't like feel like it, but our various... like I belong to the local MS society.
I belong to the national MS society, we should bring pressure on them to bring pressure in making it law because, it's not right for everybody, I understand that, that's why I say it could only be done by someone when they're in their right mind and once they've done that they obviously knew what they were doing and what they were thinking but there are people, I suppose people with strong Christian conviction, convictions who believe that's wrong.I understand that and if that's what they want but I hate this. It's not very pleasant seeing someone dying and they've got two or three days left to live and they're dying in utter pain and even the strongest painkiller's not touching them. Through their unconsciousness they're suffering and you can't and you're just keeping them three days longer, a week longer and what are they doing, they're suffering, terrible. |
