I love libraries and librarians! You are right!

It is a risk I think I would be willing to take in exchange for the right to exercise free will under a law giving the ailing person the right to choose their path. If I have misjudged my family members and others who know me, that would be sad, but I would be willing to take that chance. And if some organization somehow connived or coerced me into taking the out sooner than I wanted…well, I think I am still willing to accept that risk. But I will continue to contemplate and read about it.

Another to look up, I shall read all three during these gloomy months and hope they bring additional clarity to my thinking on all of this. Thank you. You’d make a great librarian!

You are very welcome, Janet!

By the way, after I read How to Die, I was curious about Seneca’s life in Ancient Rome. So I read his biography, Dying Every Day by James Romm. It was a real page turner because those Romans would do anything, even to immediate family, to stay in power. Seneca’s actions are questioned in the book.

I will look up the Romm book, Claire, thanks for the recommendation.

It should be easy to help those people who are ready to die without making it so easy that other people cannot be persuaded by family or culture or The System that it’s time for them to die. There’s a fundamental conflict there that is not going away.

You are welcome, Janet!

I highly recommend Romm’s book, How to Die, which actually focuses more on How to Live. It is a small book. It would be a quick read if it weren’t packed with such good ideas.

I am saving this, thanks for posting it here.

In order to pass the law in the first place, proponents had to make many concessions to opponents, so many that it is too restrictive for my liking. Attempts to broaden it or make it more accessible to people when they reach the very stage of their decline at which they have expected to ”want out” and do want out, have not been successful.

I am not ill. But I think about this a lot. I was greatly relieved to read about Canada’s law and the Swiss program, but I am not Canadian and I am still trying to figure out how I could get to Switzerland at just the right time in my decline —-far enough along that I don’t want to continue but early enough that I could make the trip.

Why can’t everyone be given a prescription for a lethal dose of morphine at the time of diagnosis and be left to fill it or not fill it at our discretion, to use with or without assistance? Some would choose to use it immediately, some would simply be happy to have it there for decades if they successfully pursued treatment or if their illness progressed slowly and without significant distress.
I know, there are many arguments to be made against that, all the “yeah, but what about”s. I haven’t read any that swayed me on this.

Don Schlitz wrote this song when he was 23 years old:

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done