Commends Letter
On Woman’s Death

I hope all of your readers read Alec Hastings' moving letter in the 11/27 Herald about his wife Deborah and her death earlier this year. In it he spoke of her bravery in facing her cancer and her wish to die toward the end of her terrible suffering.

Neither he nor Deborah's caretakers could accede to her wish, and so he ended his letter with an appeal for support of the "Death with Dignity" bill currently in the Vermont legislature. This bill would legalize the medical ending of life in the face of approaching death and intractable pain. I concur with both his reasoning and his appeal.

Several years ago, from 1986-1994, when I was associated with the Vermont Ethics Network, I traveled the state to have open discussions with communities about the painful questions—"who lives, who dies, who decides, who pays?"—often raised by the miracles of modern medicine. I was struck by how many families had stories similar to Deborah's and who were ravaged, like Alec, by helpless anguish and deep sorrow.

At that time, however, the Vermont public at large was only just becoming aware of the need for more personal engagement and direction in medical decision-making; it was not ready to grapple with Alec’s dilemma.

Now, several years later, through experience with Oregon’s legislation and the increasing incidence of cancer and other terrible terminal illnesses in younger populations, the beginning of a critical mass in thinking and experience has brought the quest of seeking physician assistance in dying to the Vermont legislature—and thus to the Vermont public.

It is one thing to debate the issue in the abstract, thereby deciding the rightness or wrongness of it. For many people this is enough. But it is quite another, and far more humanly compelling, to bring to the debate personal experience, like that of Alec and Deborah. It is upon their story—and those of countless others—that real public awareness and understanding will be built, eventually leading society to the right, compassionate resolution.

The question in my mind is, how many more Deborahs will there have to be?

Jean Mallary

Brookfield

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