Facing Up to the Right to Die
One of the formative pieces of philosophical writing that I engaged with as I entered into adulthood was The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus.
Camus doesn't pull any punches regarding the nature of his discourse. On the first page he states:
"There is but one serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy."
It is a heavy subject, but ultimately the treatise is about mankind's ability to face the absurd.
In the eponymous myth, Sisyphus is punished by the Gods and is forced to roll a boulder up a mountain for eternity, never quite reaching the top before it is doomed to roll back down. Camus uses this as a bouncing off point to discuss the plight of the character and, in allegorical sense, our own plight as we face our own boulders, whether that is the day-to-day grind of work or any other daily challenge.
Should Sisyphus end his own life if given the chance?
Camus is especially interested in the moment that the boulder begins to once again fall down the mountain. After all, it is at this moment that the absurd truly reveals itself. However, it is in acknowledging this futility, as well as the certainty of his fate, that Sisyphus can reach a state of contented acceptance.
As the work concludes, "one must imagine Sisyphus happy."
For a long time, this represented my own view of suicide. Is it not better to face and accept the limited options that we have in this life instead of venturing into the unknowable void of what lies beyond?
To a great extent, this probably still represent my own personal view on this delicate subject. However, the more I have read and heard from people who have decided to take their own life, the more I have come to understand the difficult, sensitive, and personal nature of answering this ultimate question.
The context for this rather lengthy preamble is that Parliament looks set to once more consider the question of assisted dying based on a new report from MPs.
At this point, it should be clear that the law, as it stands, is not fit for purpose. The Suicide Act 1961 comes from a time when people were still said to have ‘committed’ suicide. The word ‘committed’ is used here in the legal sense so that a person who takes their own life is equated, in a moral sense, with someone who robbed a bank or got a speeding ticket.
Our societal understanding of suicide has come along leaps and bounds since then and yet the law still remains fundamentally outdated.
In the wake of the Parliamentary report, the media has spoken to well-known public figures for whom this issue has become all too personal.
Dame Esther Rantzen is battling stage four cancer and has campaigned for the right to die. She was “disappointed” that the Committee had not directly called for there to be a vote. Meanwhile Jonathan Dimbleby spoke passionately about how the current system was “increasingly unbearable” after his younger brother, Nicholas died recently after a painful battle with motor neurone disease.
It is time that any moral scaremongering is put aside in favour of basic human compassion. Arguments that legalising assisted dying would affect the quality of end of life care fall by the wayside as other countries like Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand lead the way and show that end of life care actually improves as the law (and conversation) surrounding this topic advances.
Frankly, it is time that the UK grew up and followed suit. Of course this is not a decision to be taken lightly and assisting dying should be regulated in a comprehensive and meaningful fashion.
It is a difficult conversation to have, but that does not mean it is not worth having.
This week on the podcast, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to look at a road traffic accident case that wouldn't normally make its way past the County Court. However, the appeal raised important legal questions relating to tort law and so in this episode we explored the idea of what constitutes pure economic loss.
Episode link: https://uklawweekly.com/2024-uksc-6/
Make a difference today,
Marcus