I was prepared to extend empathy for Brittany Maynard’s mother when pictures of her posing with state lawmakers were spread across this morning’s newspapers.
Until I read Debbie Ziegler’s statement.
She said the Sacramento Legislature should honor the wishes of her late brain cancer-ridden daughter and others by allowing terminally ill patients in California to end their lives on their terms.
Death with dignity, it is erroneously called. A cheap artifice. Deviously it is designed to lure the vulnerable soft-hearted into their camp.
Feh.
Why not emulate a dog? Wander off into the woods, lie down near a tree, pass into whatever world you choose?
Wasn’t it choking enough for Ms. Ziegler to stand by helplessly in recent months as her beautiful 29-year-old daughter, a newlywed in the Bay Area, escalated her trip to the grave?
Legally, she had to move to Oregon – where suicide has been legal for 20 years — to complete the killing of herself because it is not (yet) allowed in California.
I am praying daily, hourly to (qualitatively) extend my wife’s life. I want to live until 120. I want to work until 120.
It confounds me that suicide advocates are spending vast energies to achieve early, premature deaths.
Suicide, cynically, is legal in five states, and four others, cynically, are considering it.
Tragically, this is the ultimate act of putting lipstick on a pig and calling the act respectable.
May they fail every time.
