Wash. state woman 1st death under new suicide law

AP: OLYMPIA, Wash. – Linda Fleming was diagnosed with terminal cancer and feared her last days would be filled with pain and ever-stronger doses of medication that would erode her mind.

The 66-year-old woman with late-stage pancreatic cancer wanted to be clear-headed at death, so she became the first person to kill herself under Washington state's new assisted suicide law, known as "death with dignity."

"I am a very spiritual person, and it was very important to me to be conscious, clear-minded and alert at the time of my death," Fleming said in a statement released Friday. "The powerful pain medications were making it difficult to maintain the state of mind I wanted to have at my death. And I knew I would have to increase them."

With family members, her physician and her dog at her side, Fleming took a deadly dose of prescription barbiturates and died Thursday night at her home in Sequim, Wash.

Chris Carlson, who campaigned against the new law with the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide, called the death unfortunate.
"Any premature death is a sad occasion and it diminishes us all," he said.

Under the Washington law, any patient requesting fatal medication must be at least 18, declared mentally competent and be a resident of the state.
Additionally, two doctors must certify that the patient has a terminal condition and six months or less to live, and the patient must make two oral requests 15 days apart, plus a written request that is witnessed by two people. Patients must also administer the drugs themselves.

Under the Washington measure, as in Oregon, doctors and pharmacists are not required to write or fill lethal prescriptions if they oppose the law. Some hospitals have opted out, which precludes their doctors from participating on hospital property.

-----

I find this issue very difficult for me, personally. I understand and accept the church's "seamless garment" teaching that life is always worth preserving from conception to natural death. I'm not unaware of the kinds of abuses that are possible, or the kind of slippery slope this puts us on. But I also find it very hard to see myself in her shoes and not wanting, perhaps, the same option. I don't mean necessarily that I would need the law in place to help me, or physicians to assist me. But is it understandable (and forgivable) that someone doesn't want to lose so much of herself in the dying process that she'd want to participate more actively in bringing on the end? It is to me. I don't know what she means by being "spiritual," but does God condemn such a person for this act alone? I find that difficult to believe. At the same time, I find some of the death-with-dignity groups ghoulish and their rhetoric dangerously malleable.

I confess that sometimes when I imagine getting some terrible, painful, fatal disease fifty years from now, it's hard not to imagine too the desire to put out the pain and suffering by choice and to not make my family go through that spectacle of watching me dwindle away in suffering and identity loss. But then I also feel a bit cowardly and think of my reaction to "Million Dollar Baby," where the "categorical imperative" kicks in and I am disgusted that the message be sent that anyone with this malady or health problem really ought to off herself.

I wonder how you all have reconciled your feelings on this issue.

except that I feel that nothing happens without God being present. And no, that is not an easy view to hold, because it raises a lot of really unpleasant questions. I was just reading on the blog "standing on My Head" about a roasry that apparently stoppped Ted Bundy--he was killing his way through a sorority house, but as one irl told her priest, she had promised her mother to pray the rosary every night, and he stopped and dropped his weapon when he got to her room. So part of me thinks "Wow! The rosary! really need to carry one of those around all the time!" and part of me thinks what another commenter wrote, which is, hey, could the power of the rosary maybe stepped in a little bit sooner? It's a bit like the people who say they were spared from the World Trade Center tragedy for a special purpose (one of hese people found her purpose in becoming a "drag king"--I felt maybe she misunderstood the prompting of the spirit :P ).

So, in short, believing that God is sovereign and allows hard things to happen is really hard to understand when we're not tlaking about human free will, but disease and natural disasters and the like. But I think that, for me, while I wouldn't want to suffer any pain, at all, I hate pain to be completely honest, and I'd hate for my family to see me suffer, I also feel that God will be done with me when he's done. And I know that in my last childbirth, the moment when I was wishing they'd just roll me out in front to the street where a truck could run me over was also the moment when I remembered to pray to Mary, and things really got kind of amazing after that.

So I don't think we ever want to shut out the lights early, because maybe God has some last work He really needs to do with us at that point. It's not that I don't think it's forgivable or understandable, but I wonder what might have gone on in that woman's soul had she chosen to let her death play out without suicide playing a role.

Ultimately, I suppose it's an act of surrender and trust in God, to let the awful death be what it's going to be. As Catholics, we sometimes talk about Christ allowing us to share in his suffering. I've always found this kind of talk a little bit surprising, and I'm still trying to understand it. But I've read that Mother Teresa's long dark night of the soul was attributed by her to a request she had made to fully understand and share in God's agony on the cross. I don't get it, but I think there's something to it.

First, for sharing your own story, and also for reminding me that suffering isn't always something we should run to avoid--as our Leader taught us with his actions in Gethsemane. I'd like to think I could be bigger than my fear when the time comes, but of course I'd like to think I--whatever "I" is--will be there to make the decision.