Adele Horine, Saturday Morning Herald wrote an article on this subject which seemed to me to be more about the problems created for the relatives than the wishes of the afflicted person.
All the problems that Adele made comment about are accepted but, I am now about my 80′s, one year off infact and my wife is of similar age, and we don’t want to become a mass of heaving flesh that has no realization of any of the surrounding beauties of life.
I can’t see how they can ever effect a cure of alzheimers desease since it is a destruction of the brain cells that are ones memory. It may be possible to reverse the deterioration of the brain but it is hard to imagine a situation where you can reimplant the memories experienced in the past. Consequently, if I forgot my wife and children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, the recovery of my brain could only mean that I could again learn who these people are. However, they couldn’t reimplant the memories of the experiences that I have had with these people so, they would never regain the closeness they have at this time.
If I have made such a bad job of raising my family that they are unable to amicably sort out my estate then they deserve all the problems that they inherit. I like to consider that we have made a relatively good job of raising our off spring and that they will be more interested in continuing to live as a cohesive family rather than fighting over the pittance that we will leave.
I would like to have access to the drugs that would allow me to terminate my life with dignaty and not have my wife of some 60 years left with the responsibility of having to see me turn into a useless burden, and I certainly don’t want to see my wife submitted to the indignaty of becoming a drooling lump of flesh. What happens to the estate isn’t really relavent to this problem, it is the dignity of the persons that feel that they are turning into the living dead. Iam the total of my memories and experiences and without these I am dead!
I cannot accept that I have a right to life but I do think that I have a right to decide when I am ready to die. The course of nature will determine if I am allowed to survive and it has nothing to do with any right I may think that I have to be allowed to live, I can work hard and fail and, alternatively, I can loaf around and make no effort to get on and end up a millionaire, we have no rights only a hand to play to the best of our ability with the luck we inherit. I have no more right to life than a child born with aids in Africa but I have had better luck so have enjoyed a far better and happier life.
I find it most annoying to have people tell me that I have to live because it will enhance their prospects of getting to heaven and inheriting eternal life, but they don’t want to pay taxes and donate their time to really helping people that should be able to live but through circumstances beyond their control have little chance of living a happy life. It would be different if I were to propose that the rules should be changed to make it mandatory that people be euthanazed when they have dementia, then they would have something to worry about and it would be me imposing my system on them instead of vice versa.
What we want is freedom of choice with controls to ensure that the idea isn’t corrupted to make it more easy for ” rotten ” families to get their filthy hands on estates sooner than would normally be the case