My column in The Kerryman. 22 May, 2013
Last month, driving home from Listowel, I heard on the radio that the Supreme Court had refused Marie Fleming’s appeal for help. I had to pull into the side of the road for a few moments. The decision was expected, but hearing it felt like a punch to the gut. I did what I usually do when I need to vent, I tweeted, “Heartbroken. A sentence of death by torture.”
Marie Fleming is a 59 year old woman, living in Wicklow with her partner Tom Curran. She has multiple sclerosis. The disease has advanced so far, she’s lost her physical independence. She has lost her ability to control her own fate. She has lost the opportunity to end her own suffering.
She has spoken of her regret at not suiciding when she had the power to do so. Her partner is willing to help her fulfill that wish. To end this horrible dying, before it is allowed its full measure of her suffering, though he risks a 14 year sentence. That is the law. Confirmed by our highest court. We deny our citizens the right due any other animal, an end to unnecessary pain and anguish. Even the farmer raising cattle for the slaughter, can be broken by the distressed lowing of his half-starved cows.
Not that pain can or should be always avoided. Pain serves an important function. It tells us something is wrong. A bone broken, a stomach empty, a relationship ended. It tells us something needs fixing. We intervene. Sometimes the intervention is nothing more than a hug and support. When we choose to ignore pain, be it depression or that uncomfortable lump, we make worse whatever is causing that pain.
Unfortunately, pain’s function is sometimes to tell us we are dying and there’s nothing we can do about it. It is the thing I fear most in life, a slow painful death. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to spare myself that ignoble end. And I hope I’d have the moral courage to help a loved one avoid such an end.
That is not to say everyone would wish to interrupt terminal pain. Many would rather wait till their natural end. Due to improving palliative care, this natural end is being made so much more humane and gentle. The wonderful people who provide these services are of such high quality and manage these natural ends so well, they can squeeze every positive experience possible from the loss of a loved one.
There aren’t many of us with the kindness and strength to do that work. To bring comfort at the end of a life, is humanity at its most noble. But it is wrong to insist a dying person be entitled to just one kind of comfort. Imagine it’s you being admitted to the hospice. Feel the full horror at that lack of choice. The lack of options. The lack of freedom. That lack of choice is the experience of those who wish to end their suffering. Coupled with the fear that their loved ones may go to jail.
The Supreme Court has left it open to our politicians to legislate for the Marie Flemings of this country. It is in the power of our politicians to allow Marie Fleming’s loving partner give her the final comfort she craves. I just hope our politicians will offer Mister Curran the comfort he’ll need.
