This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/04/assisted-dying-gill-pharoah-ageing
The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
Previous version
1
Next version
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Assisted dying is not the answer to old age. It could be the best time of our lives | Assisted dying is not the answer to old age. It could be the best time of our lives |
| (2 days later) | |
| “I have looked after people who are old, on and off, all my life. I have always said, ‘I am not getting old. I do not think old age is fun.’ I know that I have gone just over the hill now. It is not going to start getting better.” | “I have looked after people who are old, on and off, all my life. I have always said, ‘I am not getting old. I do not think old age is fun.’ I know that I have gone just over the hill now. It is not going to start getting better.” |
| Gill Pharaoh, a 75-year-old former palliative care nurse, said those words to the Sunday Times not long before she left her home in north London for Switzerland. Anyone who has paid even fleeting attention to the news over the past few days will know what happened next: after a final meal on the banks of the river Rhine, at the Lifecircle assisted suicide clinic in Basel, she ended her life. | Gill Pharaoh, a 75-year-old former palliative care nurse, said those words to the Sunday Times not long before she left her home in north London for Switzerland. Anyone who has paid even fleeting attention to the news over the past few days will know what happened next: after a final meal on the banks of the river Rhine, at the Lifecircle assisted suicide clinic in Basel, she ended her life. |
| Related: Choosing to live should not mean living with indignity in old age | Lucy Webster | Related: Choosing to live should not mean living with indignity in old age | Lucy Webster |
| On Tuesday morning, her partner John Southall appeared on the Today programme, explaining that down the years, Pharoah had expressed a wish to die at 50, then 60, then 70, and that the things that got in the way may have been slightly more serious than the “irritations” she herself wrote about, particularly a vulnerability to back pain and exhaustion brought on by shingles. Still, the basic facts remain. Pharaoh was not ill nor on any medication. She said in a farewell blog that “day by day I am enjoying my life”, and her own words suggested that at the heart of her decision was something very troubling: not least, her insistence that she did not want people to remember her as “an old lady hobbling up the road with a trolley”. | On Tuesday morning, her partner John Southall appeared on the Today programme, explaining that down the years, Pharoah had expressed a wish to die at 50, then 60, then 70, and that the things that got in the way may have been slightly more serious than the “irritations” she herself wrote about, particularly a vulnerability to back pain and exhaustion brought on by shingles. Still, the basic facts remain. Pharaoh was not ill nor on any medication. She said in a farewell blog that “day by day I am enjoying my life”, and her own words suggested that at the heart of her decision was something very troubling: not least, her insistence that she did not want people to remember her as “an old lady hobbling up the road with a trolley”. |
| Assisted dying has become one of those questions now habitually used to test liberal bona fides. The Financial Times now includes a question on the issue in its Saturday magazine’s questionnaire (“I did not come to this world to live for ever - make room for others,” offered 53-year-old Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which is maybe an easier thing to say at his time of life than, say, your late 70s). At this year’s Cannes film festival, one of the most interesting entries was the bluntly titled Chronic, in which Tim Roth plays an end-of-life care worker, a role that sparked such red-carpet pronouncements from the actor as “It’s crazy assisted suicide isn’t legal.” Slightly less glamorously, during the recent Lib Dem leadership election, voluntary euthanasia was a dividing line between the zealously liberal Norman Lamb, and the eventual winner Tim Farron, whose evangelical Christianity was never going to play well with large swaths of the media. | Assisted dying has become one of those questions now habitually used to test liberal bona fides. The Financial Times now includes a question on the issue in its Saturday magazine’s questionnaire (“I did not come to this world to live for ever - make room for others,” offered 53-year-old Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which is maybe an easier thing to say at his time of life than, say, your late 70s). At this year’s Cannes film festival, one of the most interesting entries was the bluntly titled Chronic, in which Tim Roth plays an end-of-life care worker, a role that sparked such red-carpet pronouncements from the actor as “It’s crazy assisted suicide isn’t legal.” Slightly less glamorously, during the recent Lib Dem leadership election, voluntary euthanasia was a dividing line between the zealously liberal Norman Lamb, and the eventual winner Tim Farron, whose evangelical Christianity was never going to play well with large swaths of the media. |
| The word 'burden' is now a staple of most coverage of our ageing population | The word 'burden' is now a staple of most coverage of our ageing population |
| Underneath a lot of this noise is the narcissistic atheism that bien-pensant types now consider the basis of all correct thought. The sainted Richard Dawkins habitually manages to frame the questions involved with his customary profundity – claiming in The God Delusion, for example, that: “When my life is taken out, I want to be under general anaesthetic, as if it were my diseased appendix.” But Pharoah’s story shines light on the nuance and complexity that surrounds the whole question, and the cultural factors that are in danger of pushing the argument somewhere very unpleasant. | Underneath a lot of this noise is the narcissistic atheism that bien-pensant types now consider the basis of all correct thought. The sainted Richard Dawkins habitually manages to frame the questions involved with his customary profundity – claiming in The God Delusion, for example, that: “When my life is taken out, I want to be under general anaesthetic, as if it were my diseased appendix.” But Pharoah’s story shines light on the nuance and complexity that surrounds the whole question, and the cultural factors that are in danger of pushing the argument somewhere very unpleasant. |
| Pharaoh’s own words are relevant here. In June 2014, she wrote to the Times, baldly claiming that “many old people are a burden on society”.and that “people who cannot accept this argument should work for a few months in a care home where many patients are demented, incontinent, unable to care for themselves, and have no visitors.” The word “burden” is now a staple of most coverage of our ageing population, and the issues therein: most notably, the rising “old-age dependency ratio” which measures the number of pensioners as a proportion of those of working age and pensioners, and the question of how far NHS spending is going to stretch(How health innovations can reduce the burden of an ageing population, a Guardian headline from June last year). | Pharaoh’s own words are relevant here. In June 2014, she wrote to the Times, baldly claiming that “many old people are a burden on society”.and that “people who cannot accept this argument should work for a few months in a care home where many patients are demented, incontinent, unable to care for themselves, and have no visitors.” The word “burden” is now a staple of most coverage of our ageing population, and the issues therein: most notably, the rising “old-age dependency ratio” which measures the number of pensioners as a proportion of those of working age and pensioners, and the question of how far NHS spending is going to stretch(How health innovations can reduce the burden of an ageing population, a Guardian headline from June last year). |
| Meanwhile, the realities of an ageing population are here. There are now more over-65s than under-16s; by 2050, the number of the former will risen from 10 million to nearly twice that number. And yet old age now sits in the culture in a profoundly awkward way. | Meanwhile, the realities of an ageing population are here. There are now more over-65s than under-16s; by 2050, the number of the former will risen from 10 million to nearly twice that number. And yet old age now sits in the culture in a profoundly awkward way. |
| Thanks partly to the divisive policies of the current government, even some commentators on the supposed left have a habit of resentfully making out that the benefits to which older people are entitled are overly generous, rather than the kind of dependable provision for which the rest of us ought to be fighting. Meanwhile, in what now passes for pop culture, a few people rich, motivated or lucky enough to have entered their 70s with their talent just about intact (Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart all spring to mind) arguably convince the rest of us of that the stereotypical effects of old age might be down to personal failings rather than the inevitabilities of advancing years. | Thanks partly to the divisive policies of the current government, even some commentators on the supposed left have a habit of resentfully making out that the benefits to which older people are entitled are overly generous, rather than the kind of dependable provision for which the rest of us ought to be fighting. Meanwhile, in what now passes for pop culture, a few people rich, motivated or lucky enough to have entered their 70s with their talent just about intact (Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart all spring to mind) arguably convince the rest of us of that the stereotypical effects of old age might be down to personal failings rather than the inevitabilities of advancing years. |
| The word “doddery” has entered popular parlance, as one of those inverted-commas pejoratives passed off as mere banter, but which has a cruel sting: the worst thing to be, it often seems, is old, infirm and in need of care. Somewhere at the heart of all this is the kind of individualism that sometimes thought of as “rugged” but which usually resolves itself as stupid and cruel. All of us need care and company, at whatever stage of life: that we may be in need of quite a lot more towards the end of our life should not mark out old age as a stage of life with a dread set of requirements all its own. So, for what they are worth, here are the thoughts of a slightly greying 45-year-old. Notwithstanding the increased likelihood of medical problems, I quite like the idea of getting old. Come the time, I will gladly hobble down the road with a trolley, nurse half a bitter for two hours, and spend whole days in front of the TV. For people of my generation, it may be by far the best time of life to occasionally indulge in recreational drugs, including some of the supposedly dangerous ones. | The word “doddery” has entered popular parlance, as one of those inverted-commas pejoratives passed off as mere banter, but which has a cruel sting: the worst thing to be, it often seems, is old, infirm and in need of care. Somewhere at the heart of all this is the kind of individualism that sometimes thought of as “rugged” but which usually resolves itself as stupid and cruel. All of us need care and company, at whatever stage of life: that we may be in need of quite a lot more towards the end of our life should not mark out old age as a stage of life with a dread set of requirements all its own. So, for what they are worth, here are the thoughts of a slightly greying 45-year-old. Notwithstanding the increased likelihood of medical problems, I quite like the idea of getting old. Come the time, I will gladly hobble down the road with a trolley, nurse half a bitter for two hours, and spend whole days in front of the TV. For people of my generation, it may be by far the best time of life to occasionally indulge in recreational drugs, including some of the supposedly dangerous ones. |
| Related: Reflecting on the joys and sorrows of old age | Letters | |
| Moreover, if the wisdom I have heard from older people is anything to go by, the twilight years may be more rewarding than some people think. After far too long spent quizzing 20-something herberts, one of the most fascinating music interviews I ever did was with two elderly Louisianans, Luderin Darbone, 91, and accordionist 93 year-old Edwin Duhon, who formed their Cajun band The Hackberry Ramblers in 1932, and got their first and only Grammy nomination in 1997. In 2007, I spent a deliriously enjoyable hour talking to Denis Healey, who was about to turn 90 - and may not have been quite as loquacious as when he was in charge of the UK economy, but still delivered, in spades. | Moreover, if the wisdom I have heard from older people is anything to go by, the twilight years may be more rewarding than some people think. After far too long spent quizzing 20-something herberts, one of the most fascinating music interviews I ever did was with two elderly Louisianans, Luderin Darbone, 91, and accordionist 93 year-old Edwin Duhon, who formed their Cajun band The Hackberry Ramblers in 1932, and got their first and only Grammy nomination in 1997. In 2007, I spent a deliriously enjoyable hour talking to Denis Healey, who was about to turn 90 - and may not have been quite as loquacious as when he was in charge of the UK economy, but still delivered, in spades. |
| None of this, needless to say, is meant to make light of the trials and traumas that can come with old age, nor of the fact in the context of terminal illness or conditions that ruin people’s quality of life. Even if assisted dying is more complicated than a lot of people will admit, there are potent arguments in its favour, and welcome signs that the existing law will eventually be changed. | None of this, needless to say, is meant to make light of the trials and traumas that can come with old age, nor of the fact in the context of terminal illness or conditions that ruin people’s quality of life. Even if assisted dying is more complicated than a lot of people will admit, there are potent arguments in its favour, and welcome signs that the existing law will eventually be changed. |
| What bothers me is that the Pharaoh story highlights an insidious part of the debate which will sooner or later have to be tackled. Even if her kind of case is still rare, I still picture people with plenty of life to be lived, with the word “burden” sitting at the heart of their thoughts. Illness, whether terminal or not, might force their hand and enact much the same story, this time not in some misplaced spirit of self-liberation, but the very British urge to not cause any trouble. Then: flights booked; a last meal; and a life ended. I do not want to live – or die – in a world like that. Neither should anyone else. | What bothers me is that the Pharaoh story highlights an insidious part of the debate which will sooner or later have to be tackled. Even if her kind of case is still rare, I still picture people with plenty of life to be lived, with the word “burden” sitting at the heart of their thoughts. Illness, whether terminal or not, might force their hand and enact much the same story, this time not in some misplaced spirit of self-liberation, but the very British urge to not cause any trouble. Then: flights booked; a last meal; and a life ended. I do not want to live – or die – in a world like that. Neither should anyone else. |
Previous version
1
Next version