Caroline was disabled and maybe you’re not listening to HER, what she said beyond the grave.
There should not be one acceptable response to disability.
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So… because our social system is not perfect, that means the government is somehow pushing for people to just ‘choose’ MAiD?
Have you read the Canadian legislation on MAiD? That’s not how any of this works.
I’m an Occupational Therapist, you are preaching to the choir on increasing funding, aid, support, improving systems. It can ALL be improved. I work with people with disabling injuries, I also work at the University increasing awareness of rehabilitation and working to increase the effectiveness of our system.
I’m also a firm believer that people can make their own medical decisions with their medical team without my opinions and my theories and my biases influencing them.
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I agree.
IDK I read the letter as a person who had been suicidal/depressed her entire life and the disability was the straw that broke the camels back. Not “just” her disability.
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I guess you didn’t read the article. Look I am for medical assisted suicide in a lot of cases. Ethically and medically speaking people with spinal injuries are in the majority of cases not actively dying. That isn’t my opinion that is medically true (barring other conditions).
As for Canada their system has its flaws (again not my opinion but debated in Canada by medical ethicists and disability advocates. It’s not controversial to say it, it isn’t a conspiracy. It’s dicey if disabled people are asking to be euthanized for lack of housing, which is what was discussed in the article I posted.
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It sounds to me as though she didn’t like who she became after her accident. Some people have wonderful dispositions and can remain kind and thoughtful to others even though their own mental and physical suffering. But some people are terrible patients. They are rude, unkind, bossy, demanding, horrible people, and they hate themselves for it. The people around them secretly hate them. The more that they try and fail to be “nice” to others who they depend on, the more anxiety and depression is produced.
I suppose such people could be drugged to the gills to make themselves a bit easier to deal with. They would still not keep their self-image/identity. Some might choose that. Others would not. If there was a way to remain the person who they are, and live in the memory of others as a better person, they would take it. There should be no blame in that.
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I think that most of us probably have some idea of where our “line” is (meaning what we think we could live with), but no one can truly know until they’re faced with it, and not everyone has to make the same decision about what that means for them.
I still need to formally write up my advance directive because I’m a relatively young person in a fairly dangerous sport and we should all really have that documentation in place, but my parents know what I consider to be my line right now. If I suffer severe brain trauma that significantly impacts my cognition regarding my identity, I don’t want them to keep “me” (my body) alive, because I’m not me without my mind. I have no idea where I would settle regarding partial or total paralysis because I haven’t lived it, but I’m not going to judge anyone else for the decision they make either.
Two things can be true at once: there are a lot of places in the world where people with disabilities are not provided the support and resources that they should have and deserve which is something that we should all be angry about and be trying to change, and Caroline should be able to make the decision that she felt was right for her without being judged for it.
We say it all the time in threads about euthanizing our pets and our horses: there are worse things than dying. Only we can decide for ourselves what those “worse things” are for us.
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(Sentence deleted by me, as prompted by moderators. I took one step too far in what I said. But know that my words can be edited but my thoughts, like Caroline’s were also, are ours alone)
@darkmoonlady
Let’s try something simple… YOU don’t have to be right. YOU don’t “WIN” this by being the LOUDEST voice in the room.
The point of Caroline’s life and death is that HER choices worked for HER and she didn’t give a damn about you. And honestly, people like you probably helped her in a way.
Em
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Stephen Hawking hung out with Jeffrey Epstein, can we stop pretending he’s some person to admire.
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Yes, you can do it in Switzerland. A facebook friend just did it. She went to Dignitas. Its a no go in the UK and comes with prison time if caught. Her story was all over the newspapers because of her strong presence in the Whippet community and also for her standing up for her right to die and pleading with the UK government to allow it. She had the 15k to travel and get it done, but many can’t afford that and those people suffer. Her name was Paolo Marra.
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I don’t know why it’s so hard to understand she didn’t want to live her life bound to a wheelchair. Some people are willing to adjust, she wasn’t.
I don’t like the idea of holding her mental health history over her head. MAiD has requisites and stipulations. You don’t just submit an application and make an appointment. She was deemed sound of mind to make the decision, and she did.
I also don’t know why she’s an example for other people who have suffer SCI. She didn’t want to be so why is she expected to be? That’s a big responsibility to inflict on someone.
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Author Amy Bloom wrote a wonderful memoir of her experience with her husband’s assisted suicide at Dignitas in Switzerland in 2022. He decided to take his own life long before his symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease had taken away his identity, It would have been much too soon for many people. In any event, the book describes the lengthy Dignitas process, for those interested.
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I see several posts saying she was accepted by MAID or a assisted suicide program. Where are people seeing that this actually happened or is this an assumption? There are no such programs in the UK, it is possible she traveled to another country but I don’t think we should assume this is what she did.
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I respect her decision and do not second-guess it. But @darkmoonlady makes a good point about how hostile the world and its built environment are to disabled people.
In a much smaller & temporary way, I learned about a bit of this when I was non weight bearing on crutches after a surgery. It woke me up to what disabled people deal with every day - impossible series of doors opening in opposite directions, bathroom stalls with awkward configurations, no place to just rest a minute, parking far from buildings, dining facilities where you carry your tray. This was all at my workplace.
Maybe we could all take a look around & see whether we can make things better for the real varieties of people we know exist, and deserve as much ease and comfort as possible.
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I didn’t imply SHE was accepted by MAiD, I was purely responding to the opinion that ANYONE who chose to die rather than live with a disability someone else deemed not that bad wasn’t a great opinion. I related my stance to my experience with the Canadian system.
I’m sorry it isn’t available in the UK. I full heartedly believe it should be a universal right.
Apologies if there was confusion by my posts.
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I have no idea what her situation was and I’m not sure what I think or feel. I want to echo AMWookey’s excellent post, and I wonder if having a formal, legal, acceptable process might prevent ugly impulsive acts and provide a clearer and better method of support for people who are in dark places. That maybe people would start filling out forms instead of doing something more drastic and less revocable.
A dear friend of mine talks about suffering from acute mental illness and how hard it was to find help because she wouldn’t promise not to suicide - no one would risk taking her on. Finally she found someone and found the medication combination that worked for her.
We know that hospice tends to extend lives for the terminally ill over those who aren’t cared for in hospice. I think there are good lessons there.
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I agree! Finger my bum for a crap? I am OUT. Hard limit. Nope. Not sticking around.
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I absolutely agree! There is SO MUCH work to be done here!
I also think this is a bit of a separate issue. I’m not sure why Dark wants to all of a sudden make it about a systemically ablest problem where governments are encouraging people to want to die. I didn’t get the strong impression from Caroline’s letter that this was her feeling. She had personal reasons that led to a medical decision that we were not included in. It was also a short letter outlining what she felt she wanted to share publicly. We will never know the exact situation, nor should we really try to speculate her reasoning.
I don’t understand the idea that she what, spent the day running into inaccessible doorways and non-existant ramps and said ‘F it, I’m OUT’. And, what, now a bunch of people that have a SCI are going to spend 2 days in a wheelchair and say to themselves, “well, that eventer chick couldn’t chuck it, guess I should just die too”. That’s not how any of this works. At all. Bah.
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Is this an industry you work in?
My sample set is not that many people but my experience is the opposite of your statement, that is why I ask.
Right now a friend is dealing with Hospice actually putting her mother in a position she will die sooner than if hospice was not involved. (Hospice wanting her to be medicated to the point of not taking in any food or drink on her own, patient and family not wanting her medicated to that point. Comfort is one thing, medicated into non-responsive is another.)
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Yes, largely people talking past each other.
However, in a society that we can all observe is judgemental in the extreme, Darkmoonlady is not incorrect to point out that our society indulges in a lot of slippery slopes:
and this is not one to be lightly ignored.
Nor are others here, posting their support of her decision, incorrect.
Let us understand when nuances are raised in complicated discussions and respond with sense.
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