On November 6, Massachusetts voters will decide whether a physician may provide a dying patient with medication to bring about a faster, easier death if the patient chooses. On the ballot will be a Death with Dignity Act. For more about this iniative read: May Doctors Help You Die by Marcia Angell.
Renee Marks Cohen presents us with a death story that would not be have been facilitated by this law. It will make some uneasy and raises many questions. We present it here to stimulate thought and discussion.
"Nora and Ann committed joint
suicide; that’s what the mother, Nora, explained in the documents she left to
be found in her apartment or mailed in advance. I read about the suicides in
the newspaper.
Nora was in her mid- or late
70’s; her daughter, Ann, who had cerebral palsy, was about 30. Her condition
was so severe from birth that she couldn’t crawl, walk, or toilet herself. But
she could feed herself from a table, use a motorized wheel chair, and master a
computer to create graphics and communicate on the Internet. She could talk,
but a novice listener had to concentrate intensely to understand her.
Read full essay: Download Ann and Nora
Author Bio: Renee Marks Cohen has done lifestyle writing as well as medical editing and writing. In the latter niche, she has been the managing editor of New York Medical College's New York Medical Quarterly, and the author, for Janssen Japan, of over 35 interview articles on schizophrenia. She has edited books on neurology, taught Beijing Medical University scientists how to write, and audited clinical trial case report forms. Cohen is also a zumba and yoga enthusiast. You may reach her at: RMC Email.
