On a brisk day at a restaurant outside Chicago, Deb Robertson sat with her teenage grandson to talk about her death.
She’ll probably miss his high school graduation. She declined the extended warranty on her car. Sometimes she wonders who will be at her funeral.
Those things don’t frighten her much. The 65-year-old didn’t cry when she learned two months ago that the cancerous tumors in her liver were spreading, portending a tormented death.
But later, she received a call. A bill moving through the Illinois Legislature to allow certain terminally ill patients to end their own lives with a doctor’s help had made progress.
Then she cried.
“Medical-aid in dying is not me choosing to die,” she says she told her 17-year-old grandson. “I am going to die. But it is my way of having a little bit more control over what it looks like in the end.”
That same conversation is happening beside hospital beds and around dinner tables across the country, as Americans who are nearing life’s end negotiate the terms with themselves, their families and, now, state lawmakers.
All the jabronis in this thread with “being able to decide when you die is BAD actually” have clearly never had a loved one painfully and slowly waste away in a shitty hospital bed praying for death every day.
People should have the right to decide when they decide to end the game of life. They should be able to make this decision with a qualified medical professional, preferably one who specializes in end of life care.
There are certain moments no one should have to endure. Really recommend the documentary “How to Die in Oregon.”