Thank you Terry Pratchett for your documentary on assisted dying. No I won't use "assisted suicide" - it's intentionally depreciative.
I respect the choice of both, those who choose to go through their illness until the end, as well as those who choose to stop it when they are still in control.
There is so little we know about life.
Where could I start? A bit of knowledge says that we exist before and after this earthly life. It does not take a huge lot to figure it out, I guess, unless we decide that only exists what we can touch, hear, smell, taste, weigh and measure with our physical senses. That is pretty ignorant, but it's also OK to be at that stage in life. So, considering that we existed before we came to this Earthly life, and we are existing after we leave it, it may also be conceivable that we are here on a particular adventure, that makes sense in a bigger picture. And the multitude of individual adventures, I have understood it for myself, are each meant to do a single thing: to attune us to the frequency of Love. To open our heart, to make us function on this frequency. Anything is just there to give us the opportunity to do so. So this knowledge goes like that, that we are choosing the best conditions for us to experience love, to become loving creators, or creators of love ... And though some experiences are incredibly cruel, appear to make no sense at all, it looks to me like the people who are taking the challenge, are indeed developing into more powerful love.
This all to say also that:
Who are we to judge upon someone else's choice about his life and leaving this life? But a pompous ignoramus ...
It takes one to know the circumstances of facing the prospect of a slow decaying end, with all the implicit pain and suffering, distress, etc. It's always easy for those who are not facing such a situation to judge. They have the right to their opinion, which is ignorant of the magnitude of the situation. But they should not have the right to influence or even decide.
Making it sound like "an easy way out" is cynical: it may also be a gesture of courage to actively die.
It goes by itself to me that I am the one, and the only one, with the right to my life as well as the right to my death - with the choice of when and how I am leaving it, should I ever be facing such a choice. Obviously, taking into loving consideration my husband, my family, my friends: everyone who may be affected.
Thank you Terry Pratchett for having taken the difficult task of exposing yourself to what is still the ignorance of some people, to the prejudice, to the critics, while you have given everyone the opportunity to consider things in a different light.
Greetings from Switzerland
