Thursday, 23 August 2012

Tony Nicklinson: One man's touching tale...


Imagine being in prison; kept against your will, not able to go where you want, asking permission to do even the smallest of things, and knowing that this is your life. This is it. No escape. Just this cage.

It's a horrible thought isn't it? To have your freedom ripped away from you…

Now imagine that prison is your own body. That your still 'you' – you still want to do all the things you do now - walk, stroll, run, jump, chase, shake hands, hug and make love...but your body and a cruel twist of fate conspire to make you sit there. Rooted. Trapped. Waiting. Not hoping, because hope has long since departed - but wanting and yearning for relief...

Now I know this sounds like the making of a Greek tragedy, but for Tony Nicklinson, this, sadly, wasn't the stuff of myth or tale, this was reality. This was his reality. This was his life.


And for Tony, the relief that he yearned and prayed for was death. The pain was too much. The sadness of being trapped within himself was too much. And the anguish of the memory of how he lived before his stroke – a happy, active, rugby-playing, sky-diving father and husband – was too much.


That's why, for the past decade since his stroke, Tony - along with the unconditional and selfless support of his family - campaigned for the right to grant him his relief, and spare him the years of hurt and indignity that lay before him.


Now I'm not here to question the sanctity of life...that's not my place or business...but when someone is in so much pain that even though they can't move their lips to tell their partner they love them, their face can still contort in sheer anguish at the sentence of - for want of a better word - 'life', then the question begs what is more humane; the preservation (prolonging) of human life, or the protection (protecting the value of it) of it? I mean surely the root value of human life, the enduring grace and sustaining joy lies in choice...free will...to decide how our life is lived...

In Tony Nicklinson’s case, it is my opinion that society was shown the stage upon which men must stand to make important decisions, and they shied away. They said "it wasn't for them to decide, but for Parliament."  That, for me, is the ethical equivalent of saying “don’t ask me – I just work here. Ask someone else.”

This ruling, or lack thereof, broke Tony Nicklinson's heart. From that day, he refused food or treatment and within a week he had contracted pneumonia and had died.


To no great fanfare or farewell, to no poetic tributes or songs written, but he had thrown the debate of assisted suicide (or depending on your interpretation; 'assisted autonomy') into the media spotlight and the public consciousness. – and who knows who else his work might help in the future…

But more importantly, he touched millions of lives with his story and his plight, and then as softly as he left came into our lives, he left his own with an understated yet heartfelt farewell;

"Goodbye world the time has come - I've had some fun"

And if Tony's tale tells us anything, it is surely that, in the enduring words of Jagger and co., "You can't always get what you want, but sometimes you just might find you get what you need..."

Just a thought...




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