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pray on one’s own Dignity requires combining these concepts – inscribed in the title – and other additional ones of similar character. A central one will be the solidarity between the mourner and companion. The State is obliged, then, to organize the environment and the norm so that this final act is possible and legal. Dying is not, when conscious and free, a simple and straightforward act. Respect for one’s own life and the feelings of others is essential. A dignified death is a consistent, respectful act of supreme courage both for the person who executes it and for those who assist and collaborate. The end of a life that may well be preceded by pain, anguish for the future, and fortitude in the face of what is to come. That type of love that liberates is required, not that which holds, imposes or controls.
I have witnessed two very different positions towards people who do not wish to prolong their agony: true or felt. Some, those who cling – faced with the inability of the suffering or desperate person – to not assist in the peaceful execution, and the others, who provide the necessary help, including presence, medical technique and accompaniment to facilitate it. The result of each of these alternatives could not be more different in terms of hopelessness and suffering, on the one hand, and certain liberation and rest, on the other. The State is then expected to provide the essential legal conditions. Given that, when for various reasons, family members, authorities or friends refuse to use defining aids, those who wish to die must prolong their agony.
Collaborating so that a person’s death is dignified requires help and understanding from another or several individuals. It may well be the additional member of the couple, a friend, the specialist, a generous volunteer or family member. It requires, however, resisting and overcoming the pain of seeing a loved one or another human requesting disappear forever. We must make room for a final and defining act of freedom. Being a committed witness to an ending that can also lead to redemption. The consequent peak moment of a person who, by advance will, ends his stay among the living. Many of them forming lines among those loved or supportive of the applicant.
Refusing to participate in the death of an acquaintance, friend, family member or partner of years, and not allowing him or her to exercise his or her will, even if he or she wants it, is a deeply selfish, irresponsible act. Focused, primarily, on their very intimate needs, fears or cowardices. What is caused in this capricious case is the perpetuation of unnecessary suffering. Refusing to support the request for a dignified death is not, at all, acting with human quality. This refusal is influenced by positions of various kinds: generally religious beliefs. Truly justifying, palliative of one’s own shortcomings or fears of ethereal condemnations, most of the time. But there are also deep-rooted personal fears, superstitions, authoritarian visions, weaknesses and even frank misgivings.
I have witnessed how three women, intelligent sisters, were helped, by their families and partners, to die with dignity. The pain caused to those loved ones did not prevent them from supporting the triple terminal decision. Rather, they allowed themselves to achieve their goal, knowing that, for the rest of their days, they would relapse into the memory of those terrible moments. But the mourners were able to crown their own wishes. Despite the forced secrecy of their actions.
But I also witnessed the refusal of other family members to accept that their mother could die. Incapacitated after a copious stroke that paralyzed half her body, her speech and at least part of her consciousness, she still allowed the subsequent cutting of a leg (gangrene) which, if not done, would cause her death in a few hours. She had requested, repeatedly, that she not be subjected to artificial life. She only aspired to be respected and needed. Not at all a burden on family morale. They ignored her and prolonged her prostrate agony for two additional years without any forgiveness.
Now that it has been decided to start public discussion to legislate euthanasia, there is an obligation to participate. The purpose is to form the critical mass that allows voluntary death to be regulated. It is necessary to request, and even demand, a government and Congress that are supportive, to accept this humane way of dying. Opposition from the conservative reaction of parties, media, Church or medical body is to be expected. But overcoming arbitrary impositions, fundamentalism and selfishness is the task of a popular movement that claims to be human. Joining the chorus that stands out in the world will add pride, belonging and independent destiny of well-being.
