This powerful op-ed by Inna Faliks was published in the Washington Post on November 12th.
Ms. Faliks describes the courageous journeys of her parents, who traveled from Rome to Chicago 32 years ago as Soviet refugees, and then, in the present time, from Chicago to Switzerland so that her mother, suffering from the horrors of terminal, metastatic glioblastoma (a brain tumor) could have a peaceful, medically-assisted death at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich — Switzerland being the only country in the world where medical aid in dying is available to anybody, citizen and non-citizen alike.
“My parents and I fled the Soviet Union to escape a regime that, among many things, prevented one from making decisions as an individual. Yet the highly individual decision to choose medically assisted suicide is not widely available in the United States. It is almost as if we regard the very idea of death as shameful. We say “she passed” because we are afraid to say “she died,” as if uttering the word “death” will make it come for us. We want to soften the impact of the inevitable, and at the same time, we live with laws that prolong suffering leading to it. While this procedure is legal in 10 states and D.C., strict residency requirements make it impossible for patients residing in other states such as Illinois, where my parents lived for the past 32 years. Legalizing it nationwide and making it financially accessible would allow all terminally ill patients — not just those who can afford the financial burden of doing it abroad — to have control over the suffering at the end of their lives.”
This is profound stuff, folks, it showcases the true cruelty of laws that prohibit aid in dying. Note: we call it medically-assisted dying, medical aid in dying, assisted dying or just plain aid in dying — NOT suicide — to draw attention to the vast difference between suicide as it is commonly understood — an impulsive tragedy of a mentally ill person — and the rational act of a terminally ill and suffering person.