DYING TO LIVE: MUST THE REAPER BE SO GRIM?

How would you choose to die if you could choose your own death? This isn’t a question that gets asked very often, but it’s an interesting and important one to consider. It’s probably safe to say that most of us would choose to die without suffering, at the end of a long life.

To some extent, we can choose our own deaths. When faced with an illness that is likely to be terminal, we don’t need to go out fighting. If one chooses instead to accept the terminal nature of the condition and make the most of his remaining time, palliative care may be the way to go.

If assisted suicide were an option, it would likely provide the most pleasant of deaths. Even with palliative care to minimize suffering in terminal illness, gradual demise can be unsettling for both the ill individual and for loved ones. Avoiding this experience could reasonably be a desirable option.

This is not to say that assisted suicide would be the best choice for everyone. If discomfort can be effectively managed through palliative care, the additional time could be valuable. One could get his affairs in order, make amends for regrets, and maybe do a few of those “things we’d like to do before we die”.

And, of course, do-it-yourself suicide in is always an option.

Most of us have a very strong aversion to death. Natural selection sees to it that those animals that are best able to avoid it survive longer and have more offspring. Aversion to death and strategies for its avoidance obviously confer survival benefits.

Aversion to death may also develop through associative learning. Death often follows painful and unpleasant circumstances, like illness or catastrophic injury. The temporal relationship with the distasteful circumstances reinforces the notion that death and suffering go hand in hand.

While our aversion to death is understandable, it isn’t entirely rational. The well established association between death and suffering is misleading. Death can be as easy as going to sleep. In fact, some people do die in their sleep.

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