Tuesday - April 15, 2014

growing old is no walk in the park.  I’d say just ask her, but she is no longer of this world.

It’s fairly typical of the Mail to have somewhat misleading headlines.
In fact, anyone who only skims the headlines in this paper will generally come away with the wrong story.
In this case though, they may be very close to the actual facts.

The elderly lady was indeed simply put off by and very tired of … a more modern age than she grew up in. 
I think all of us at times, while appreciating the advances in and uses of technology and medicines and entertainment, seriously question many things that have gone wrong.  I think that’s true of every generation.
In this case, the lady in question went to Dignitas in Switzerland, and put an end to a life she no longer was happy with.

At the age of 89, with her health failing and knowing with age would come more failure, and while still in control of all her faculties, she decided to end it there before such decisions could be denied her.

For very similar reasons but with even more health issues, a woman of 99 last week ended hers also.
I can easily understand both of them.  I don’t buy the slippery slope scare mongering critics who claim legalizing assisted suicide will open the floodgate to assisted murder.  Easy for people who still have health, are not old and helpless and outlived their closer family and contemporaries, to “insist” that those eager to end it all, should remain alive and miserable at the behest of strangers who believe otherwise.
All life is NOT precious.  To some, life can be a burden unbearable to them. And so they end it.  While they are still able to.

She btw suffered from heart and lung disease, yet the Mail in all their pompous wisdom describe her as, “healthy”. 

Teacher died at Dignitas because she couldn’t bear modern life: Healthy spinster’s despair at fast food, email and lack of humanity

The 89-year-old, from Sussex, said she couldn’t keep up with modern life
She claimed new technology had ruined face-to-face human relationships
She was neither terminally ill nor disabled, but ended life at Swiss clinic
Case is likely to stoke ongoing debate over the right to die

By Claire Ellicott

A retired art teacher committed suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland after she grew weary of the pace of modern life and how technology was changing society.

The 89-year-old felt that her failing health, as well as her belief that people were becoming ‘robots’ attached to their gadgets, gave her little reason to live.

The woman, who wanted to be known only as Anne, had suffered from worsening health in recent years, but was neither terminally ill nor disabled.

Her case will stoke the ongoing debate over balancing a right to die against the dangers that vulnerable people could be exploited.

Yesterday critics warned that any relaxation in the law in Britain could lead to increased risks for the elderly and disabled.

Anne gave an interview days before she died in which she said computers and email had taken the humanity out of social interaction.

A keen environmentalist, she also said she worried about the impact of overcrowding and pollution on the planet, adding that the only thing that gave her pleasure was feeding birds in her garden in Sussex.

She described her feelings as she walked down supermarket aisles looking for fruit and vegetables to make soup, only to be appalled by the mass of ready meals.

In the interview, published in The Sunday Times, Anne said: ‘Why do so many people spend their lives sitting in front of a computer or television?

‘I have never had a television, I have only had a radio ... people are becoming more and more remote. We are becoming robots. It is this lack of humanity.

‘I find myself swimming against the current, and you can’t do that. If you can’t join them, get off.’

She said she was dismayed that ‘all the old-fashioned ways of doing things have gone’, adding: ‘They say adapt or die. At my age, I feel I can’t adapt, because the new age is not an age that I grew up to understand. I see everything as cutting corners.’

Anne was born in Kenya and never married or had children.

A former electrician with the Royal Navy, she was also a keen sportswoman and played tennis until the age of 70.
‘I find myself swimming against the current, and you can’t do that. If you can’t join them, get off’

As she grew older, her health became increasingly poor and she suffered from heart and lung disease.

She committed suicide by taking a lethal overdose of barbiturates on March 27, after saying: ‘I don’t want to die whimpering, but go out with a bang.’

In her submission to the Dignitas clinic, she wrote: ‘My daily action to feed birds in the garden is a joy. However, my lack of strength and energy and declining health is a life with no enviable future.

‘My life to date has been full, with so many adventures and tremendous independence.’

Her niece Linda, 54, who also wanted to be known only by her first name, agreed to accompany her aunt to Switzerland where they spent a few days sightseeing before going to the clinic.

Read more at the link

WHY I LET HER GO, by Anne’s niece

Posted by peiper     on 04/15/2014 at 06:49 AM   
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine •  
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