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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