Posted on 09/03/2011 2:10:44 PM PDT by wagglebee
Jane Gross, a retired reporter for The New York Times, has written a book about helping her mother die. And while euthanasia and assisted suicide are deeply disturbing but hardly new concepts, something about her story is especially upsetting. Perhaps in part it’s because she chose to write a book about it in the first place. Maybe it’s because my own elderly parents are suddenly facing serious mental and physical problems that I find Gross’ story so repugnant.
The book, A Bittersweet Season, was recently excerpted in Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper. The subheading of the article read, “They were never close—but then Jane agreed to help her ailing mother starve herself to death. And that shocking pact brought them together.”
Jane’s mother, Estelle, wasn’t terminally ill. She was 88 years old, partially paralyzed, and unable to speak after a series of strokes. By Jane’s account, she was “humiliated by her helplessness.” Estelle communicated her desire to die to Jane by using a cardboard alphabet chart. Together they agreed on using a process called VSED (voluntary stopping of eating and drinking).
The nursing home staff agreed to their plan. “As the days passed, I watched the hands of the clock from my perch in a corner of my mother’s room,” Jane writes. “They seemed to have stopped moving. She soon became a curiosity, as staff stood in her doorway to watch the old lady who would not die. [It took 13 days instead of the expected week.] I accused staff of sneaking her ice cubes when my back was turned. I was twitching with impatience. I wanted my mother to hurry up and die, and was ashamed to admit it.”
The positive blurbs for the book on Amazon probably shouldn’t surprise me. In this day and age, such actions, and having the “courage” to write about them, draw praise. The Boston Globe reports, “Gross writes movingly about the toll it takes on her and other caregivers. . . . [S]he’s serious about documenting the often hidden workload borne by middle-aged daughters and sons.” The Seattle Times praises Gross as “an incisive critic of our systems and institutions.” Commonweal lauds her for bringing up such a difficult topic, writing, “Individuals, families, medical professionals, and our society’s institutions have a pressing moral duty to reform our failing systems of care for the fragile old and dying. Jane Gross’s excellent book can help us do better on all these fronts.”
We can do better on this front, and it shouldn’t involve “twitching with impatience” for someone to die.
The staff that went along with her all deserve prison at least and were it up to me they'd live on nothing but bread and water for the balance of their lives. This is conspiracy to commit murder and murder for hire (payment of accomplices to not intervene has been held to be equivalent to murder for hire given the equality of guilt in a first degree murder) if anyone were to pursue it but no, people these days will buy her book and sympathize then start planning the murder of those they find inconvenient.
Your situations were entirely different. This woman was in a home and had nothing physically wrong with her (she was probably depressed) and got a daughter with whom she had apparently never gotten along to arrange “protocols” for her to starve to death.
I doubt that any of you are defending the fact that you sat in a nursing home eagerly awaiting the death of a mother you had never liked very much anyway. Maybe you should read the article first.
“They are equating natural death with a calculated decision to starve and dehydrate someone to death when she wasn’t otherwise dying.”
My dad made that decision for himself and did it at age 92.
That’s tragic.
“Individuals, families, medical professionals, and our society’s institutions have a pressing moral duty to reform our failing systems of care for the fragile old and dying. Jane Gross’s excellent book can help us do better on all these fronts.”
I agree that there is something seriously wrong with a system that allows tens of thousands of people to slowly waste away in a nursing home and act as a drain on society.
Ideally everyone ought to be active or at least somewhat active to the end and then die of something quick and relatively painless (naturally; I didn’t say euthanize people). There is absolutely no reason for anybody to suffer a slow, horrible end where their faculties leave them one-by-one.
Unless you are arguing for euthanasia, this is precisely how many people die. I've seen it with both of my parents and my father in law. It is a sad fact of life. All of them had the best medical care possible, but when the body is at the end, there is simply nothing you can do.
I accused staff of sneaking her ice cubes when my back was turned.
She wasn’t starved to death, she was dehydrated to death. How pleasant. If it took 13 days someone probably was sneaking ice cubes to her. Bravo to them
You want my opinion, I think inactivity is the biggest killer of old people. Most of them in homes literally have nothing to do but stare at the walls.
Generally people who keep their mind active do tend to age better. I’m not saying you’re going to be what you were when you were 20 of course, but...
In that regard, my family has fared quite well. The worst was probably my grandmother (who was in a home). She had a lot of little weaknesses that all added up, but her end came rather abruptly from a stroke.
She could have done a lot better than she did, but also at the same time I reflect that there are people much worse off. Some of her problems were her own fault too because she never exercised and also destroyed a kidney because of popping prescription drugs for years.
why is it tragic?
His knees wouldn’t function any longer and he wanted out since he couldn’t do everything for himself any longer.
He had us all come to visit him and explained his decision and no one in the family tried to stop him which I think is good.
If I ever became an invalid or had to have people care for me I will do the same!
See Jane. See Jane murder her mom. Kill, Jane, kill.
But then write a book about watching every detail and confessing your twitching, to make it easier for other soccer moms to take the next step in their development. After all, as long as talking points are provided to the group, anything can be accomplished.
Absolutely anything.
“If I ever became an invalid or had to have people care for me I will do the same!”
Same here. I hope when my end comes, I die of a quick heart attack or something. Slowly falling to pieces in a nursing home is about the absolute worst possible way to end.
“Dad knew what he was doing”
You are right. They know.
Her mother wasn’t even terminally ill.
Vile.
The staff that went along with her all deserve prison at least and were it up to me they'd live on nothing but bread and water for the balance of their lives. This is conspiracy to commit murder and murder for hire (payment of accomplices to not intervene has been held to be equivalent to murder for hire given the equality of guilt in a first degree murder) if anyone were to pursue it but no, people these days will buy her book and sympathize then start planning the murder of those they find inconvenient.
Very well said!
I personally despise secular humanism and find it an extremely dishonest, hypocritical ideology.
Savagesusie writes great comments about secular huamnism - what it is, where it comes from, its roots, and so on. If she doesn’t respond to this (maybe she’s busy etc) do a search on her comments, they’re like short articles sometimes. You’ll be glad you did.
It’s tragic for anyone to put so little value on their own life, or that of a family member. Or even a stranger for that matter. Life is a gift from God. Any time somebody spits in God’s eye and throws away that precious gift, I see that as a tragedy. Any time somebody considers themselves or someone else disposable, I see that as a tragedy. Any time somebody thinks they don’t deserve to live because they’re too much of a burden, and their own family agrees, I see that as a tragedy.
My oldest sibling had a malignant brain tumor, but at 58, he was otherwise quite healthy. His wife starved him to death. My sisters and I found out about it after he died. She was quite open about it, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
We do not speak to her anymore.
My brothers both died on September 5, one in 1989, and the other in 1990.
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