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Sarah. Just Add Hyperfocus's avatar

Wendy was amazing. I have all of her books. So much respect for her and so much gratitude to you, Anna, for assisting her to bring her books and work into publication.

I agree with her. Luckily in Australia, “VAD” (Voluntary Assisted Dying) is legal. There is a process to go through, and obviously strict legal and medical parameters, but I have seen people in the hospital where I work be able to die with dignity and go out “in style” rather than face the end of life that Wendy describes. I have a friend who chose that path and he was able to plan his dying and be surrounded by his closest family, all of whom understood his decision.

And on the other side, I watched my Mum pretty well starve herself to death after a severe stroke when she had lost all capacity to do anything else (before VAD was legal here). My mothers death was traumatising for everyone, and a journey she took alone, not sharing her thoughts. My friend’s death enabled us all to celebrate his life.

I think we should be allowed to choose. Quality of life is more important to me than length when you are faced with debilitating disease of any sort.

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Helen Saxby's avatar

That's a really powerful film, thank you for sharing. I've thought a lot about assisted dying since my mum died and my sister got a terminal cancer diagnosis. Wendy's case is compelling and she articulates it so well that I agree with her when she speaks. And yet, I have read other accounts which make me pause. Apart from reports from other countries about 'mission creep' and what can happen when you allow or normalise something new, I was also affected by Andrew O'Hagan's account in Mayflies. I thought the surrounding relationships, and the effect of the decision to go to Dignitas had on these relationships, articulated really well in that book why the death of a human being is of a different order of things to the death of an animal. Esther Rantzen said on the Today programme the other morning that we allow our pets a more dignified death than our human loved ones, but that just made me think that yes, we will put a pet down but we will not put a human being down, and maybe it should stay that way. In any event, we need to talk about the subject with compassion but also with realism. Let's hope we can do that.

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