Assisted dying legislation could have helped save my friend’s life - Steve Cardownie
So, the Scottish Parliament voted 69 to 57 against proposed legislation which could have made Scotland the first part of the UK to allow terminally adults the right to end their own lives.
Liberal Democrat MSP, Liam McArthur accused those who rejected the bill of a “woefully inadequate response to the suffering and trauma experienced by dying Scots and their families.”
A sentiment which, given my, never to be forgotten experience, detailed below, I wholeheartedly endorse.
This reminded me of a column I composed a few years ago when I recounted the case of a friend of mine who, when faced with a horrendous choice, made a decision that would have tragic consequences.
Dave was an ex-Royal Airforce Military Policeman who had moved to Edinburgh some time ago. He befriended a group of us who used to meet up regularly in a West End bar and gradually became “one of the boys.”
Always impeccably dressed in a shirt and tie, he was an impressive six foot plus, mild mannered gent. After a while he dropped a few hints that “he would not be around for long” meaning that his demise was imminent.
On enquiring what he meant, Dave declined to elaborate so I assumed that it was a matter that was deeply personal and related to his health.
We had noticed that he had a tendency to lapse into prolonged stretches of silence, when he appeared deep in thought and which, were usually triggered by what someone had said or a particular song that was playing on the sound system.
Some time passed before Dave was “posted missing” and, as I knew that he had no immediate family in Edinburgh, I feared the worst and thought that he was either in hospital or that he had sadly passed away.
We made enquiries but hit a dead end when we were shocked to read in a newspaper that his body had been found in his flat in Gorgie, having taken his own life.
He had had a terminally ill wife who he regularly visited in a nursing home and, after witnessing her acute pain had allegedly placed a pillow over her head and smothered her.
He was subsequently arrested, charged with her murder and released on bail. Yes, facing a trial for murder he was released on bail, which surely could only have been allowed because the authorities knew that, given the circumstances, he did not pose a threat to the public.
One can only assume that the terrible dilemma he faced when “the love of his life and soul mate” (as he described her) was so consumed by pain that she pleaded with him to end her life and ease her suffering. Then, unable to continue with the anguish that consumed him, Dave took the only course of action that he felt was open to him.
We should not judge.
To quote from Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, where the small-town lawyer, Atticus Finch, tells his daughter, Scout, that you never really know a person “Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
But, if assisted dying legislation had been in place - this tale may have had a more dignified ending and Dave may still have been alive today.