A Dignifiable Death

A moment of silence for the passing of the good (bad?) doctor.

Dr. Death, as he was called, believed that medicine should facilitate the process of dying as well as of living. The fact is that while we cannot choose the circumstances (dignity?) of our birth, we can choose how, and even why, we want to die.

See, unlike the biblical fundamentalists, who think that some will escape death (be "taken up,") most doctors understand that all people die one way or another.

Rather than pretend/diagnose that it can be otherwise, however, Dr. Death offered the hope of a dignifiable death. Oddly, I have been suggesting to family/friends who are being treated for cancer to ask the cancer specialist if he/she is a friend. If the answer is 'Yes, I'm here to help', ask why he/she is wanting to poison, burn and/or cut you. What, you did not know that chemo is poison to the body, that radiation burns the body and that surgery cuts you like a knife? I ask you now: What kind of friend wants to poison, burn and/or cut you?

Oh, you say, they do it to keep you living. Excuse me but that's like saying water-boarding keeps prisoners-of-war telling the truth!

What I don't get is how the doctor who helps you have a willfully peaceful death is considered the villain, when the many who keep you living at all cost (literally) are considered heroic. As a convinced Christian (Quaker), I believe in the equality of persons before God. As such, even though I know that many forms of equality, here on earth, are withheld from people; the equality of persons before God establishes equal access (sans user fees) to death for all.

In my view, life is like a chess game with kings, queens, bishops, equestrians, etc.. After the game is over, however, all the pieces/characters are put in the same box (ground or wall.) Equal access to death (God's choice, our reality) should be welcomed, especially after unequal access to life's dignities.