Euthanasia should be legal

Euthanasia should be legalised. In my role as a funeral celebrant I hear some shocking stories about how people suffer at the end of their life. Death can come suddenly or a person lingers, gradually fading. For some older people, the body weakens while the mind stays alert. Others remain physically strong, but cognitive losses take a huge toll. End of life is a period in which someone deteriorates. This can take days, weeks, months or longer but it’s usually an unpleasant period in someone’s life and actually unnecessary given medical advances. At the end of someone’s life we aim to make this time comfortable, managing pain and distressing symptoms. But there’s only so much we, the families, doctors and nurses can do. Many people still suffer and it’s totally inhumane and barbaric to allow this suffering to happen.
My dad is end of life. He’s barely eaten in months and has lost lots of weight. He says it’s painful on his stomach to eat. He’s confined to a wheelchair and cries because he can’t go out to his favourite cafe. He’s in pain because he has bone cancer and the cancer is spreading. Several months ago he told his social worker that he wanted to go to Switzerland to end his life. Is this an unreasonable request? I don’t think so. It’s his life and why should he suffer? It’s not as if he’ll get better. But the mention of suicide is a red flag to an social worker and doctor and he was immediately prescribed anti depressants which only mask the real situation going on. It is wrong that the state should have the last word on life and death matters and it’s time we took control over our lives.
Those against euthanasia argue that families might put pressure on their loved ones to end their life. Actually the problem is more likely to be the other way around. Families are more likely to try to stop their loved ones ending their life. This has to be an agreement between the patient and the doctor and it has to be decided at the outset when the diagnosis is made and when the patient still has mental capacity. Opponents also put forward many legal obstacles.
This is how I would administer the system: Doctors could conduct a short interview at regular points in a patients life. This could be done when the patient sees the doctor at an appointment and as part of the patient’s health check. The interview would ask some basic questions about whether they want the lethal injection when they reach end of life. Their views can be assessed over their lifetime from 18 years onwards, so that by the time somebody is at end of life, for instance suffering from terminal cancer and in pain they know for sure it’s what the person wants because there has been consistency in their belief over a long period of time.