The first thing that comes to mind when the stories about Oregon's assisted suicide law at the Supreme Court come on the radio is last winter.
It was late in 2003 when the pain became unbearable. My father had mesothelioma, and as the cancer progressed, the sharp pain became incessant, debilitating. He took morphine, but after a while, it stopped having enough of an effect- the pain was still there, and it blocked his intestinal tract up as well. If he got a good hour or two in a day- just a short time when the pain subsided enough to let him concentrate on a book, or on a TV show, or maybe walk around the block- that was a good day. But the good days became fewer and farther between, and then the disease blocked him from even being able to eat or drink or swallow.
And as this progressed, he read about ending it all. He began to get mail from groups that offered advice, groups lobbying to change the laws in Florida, groups that told of the Oregon law and how the Justice Department was fighting it.
And he would tell me how he couldn't live with the pain anymore. He would look at me and say "what kind of life is this? I can't eat, I can't walk, I can't sit or lay down or stand up. This is no life." But he would not- could not- bring himself to end it himself. If it was legal, he may have done it, but he couldn't. And that's why he had to endure several last months of agonizing pain, unable to enjoy anything, able only to writhe in agony as the morphine didn't have enough effect.
So when I see the objections to assisted suicide, I can only think that the people fighting it tooth and nail- the people likening it to murder, to abortion- have never seen a loved one die in agony. They trot out the extremes- Kevorkian, people who are merely depressed, people who aren't terminal, people who aren't in pain- and they ignore or avoid those who they sentence to an extended period of the most intense physical pain known to man.
And I think of my father. He was a good- no, a great man, a man whose life's work helped countless children survive the inner city and get an education and prosper. He was a wonderful, loving father and husband. He did not deserve to have to spend the last few years of his life in an increasing state of torture.
I wish he was here today, not to suffer but to tell the court what it's like to suffer, what it's like to be terminal and without hope of a cure and in intense pain yet not permitted to end the agony. In the debate over Oregon's law, someone should be there to tell his story.
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