Next up, death. Ok sorry not funny but 100% true: no one gets out alive. It’s preposterous to think it’s 2024 and choosing how one leaves this world isn’t a simple concept or easy process. Multiple doctors questioning your sanity, decision making, feelings, wishes and all at a time when the end is near and the goal is to hasten that ending, to make it as comfortable and smooth as possible.
Do you want your loved ones last words to be “it hurts”?
Doubtful.
But in any state in America that has finally made it legal to choose how to end your own life, they have forgotten about that final step and how difficult, painful and fraught it will be. Why make it worse by forcing a human to ingest a toxic mash that will cause them the kind of pain they’re seeking to escape?
It’s utterly ridiculous that medical professionals prefer this to something that would be administered intravenously. I genuinely do not understand. It actually makes me angry. It’s unfair and unnecessary.
Here’s what happens when someone who is in hospice has finally gone through the arduous process of planning the end of their life: they have to orally ingest 100 ground up morphine pills after already having to take other medications that are intended to help ease the process. If those meds can be administered easily via a pill then why on earth would you then force the individual to swallow something so incredibly harsh?
It feels punitive. You wanna die? G’head and do it but we’re gonna make it the worst last moments of your suffering. How the fuck is that humane.
This incredibly loving human had to justify his choices for two weeks to doctors who had very little notion of who he was and one who barely respected the decision to end his life.
I cried all day after watching the film a daughter made about her dad’s last few weeks. His last words gutted me. I can barely hold back tears when it flashes back.
It. Hurts.
To the Timoner family: your gift of Last Flight Home should be required viewing for anyone who thinks about free will. This is what freedom is about.
May Eli Timoner’s memory live on in his children and grandchildren.