LIFE AFTER MOTHER: Right to Choose Death with Dignity

In the acclaimed 2014 film Still Alice, Julianne Moore plays a woman with Alzheimer’s, who schemes to end her life by taking a whole vial of very strong sleeping pills, probably a barbiturate. Except the plan goes awry, she’s no longer capable of understanding what she’s doing, she’s interrupted by the sound of someone entering the house, and the pills spill all over the floor. Instead she will spend the rest of her natural life, her mind slipping away little by little, cared for by her family or in an Alzheimer’s facility.

More recently Amy Bloom described in her memoir In Love how her husband, Brian Ameche, a former football player, began showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s in 2016, and was ready to avoid a fate similar to the fictional film character Alice. 

After exploring just about every option — legal or otherwise — and complying with every step in a lengthy and complicated process, the couple traveled to the non-profit DIGNITAS in Switzerland in early 2020, where Ameche was allowed the choice of drinking a fatal dose of sodium pentobarbital, and died quickly and peacefully.

Explaining why the couple went to Switzerland when some states have right-to-die laws concerning physician-assisted death, Bloom writes, “Choosing to die and being able to act independently while terminally ill is a deliberately narrow opening. Many people can’t get through it.” 

She explains how having the right to die with dignity is one thing, exercising that right is another. Depending on the state, you may have to meet residency requirements. A doctor must diagnose you’ll be dead within six months. You have to have physician interviews, some days apart, in which you assert you are not psychotic or suicidal or depressed and hope the doctors agree with you. If a drug is prescribed, you have to be physically able to self-administer it, and in some states, pick it up from a pharmacy willing and able to supply it. 

In Switzerland two non-profit organizations, DIGNITAS and Pegasos, provide assistance with navigating the process, which even under Swiss law remains complicated. You must apply to become a member of the organization. Once accepted, you must pay the membership fee in cash or by PayPal (no checks, no credit cards) to the Swiss account. Then a request for assistance must be made, paperwork including medical and dental records must be submitted, which may be followed by a “provisional green light.” Then the person, and an accompanying family member or caregiver, must be physically and financially able to travel to Switzerland for examination by a Swiss doctor. If the Swiss doctor approves, then the patient may be able to choose a physician-assisted death.

I understand physician-assisted death is a complicated issue, but I support making an option available for the terminally ill that may choose death with dignity.