The Dutch really are different. This account of the last days of a terminally ill woman in the Netherlands who chooses voluntary euthanasia is amazing to read. This is how the day she dies begins:
Martin, the kindly suicide doctor, comes around that evening and this is how it goes:Mum leaves and comes back again three times. After the last visit, I can hear she is hoisting the vacuum cleaner up to the attic. It is just after 6am.
It is the start of an increasingly mad day, during which Mum hoovers the whole house and does six loads of washing (one of which consists of a single white shirt). She scrapes all the woodwork on the outside of the house clear of moss and cleans the windows.
After breakfast, I find Dad fuming after Mum has given him grief for not ironing fast enough.
If this doesn't make you feel at least a little uneasy about how euthanasia can work in practice, then you're probably Philip Nitschke.6.15pm: The doctor arrives shortly after the scene with the toilets. Mum greets him, then disappears upstairs, saying, "Best let me potter for a bit." Nobody sees her for another 20 minutes.
"Does it happen at all that people pull out at the last minute?" I ask.
"Yes," Martin says. "Quite often I go home again and a new appointment is made. But in many cases the patient passes away between visits."
When Mum comes back, listing things she has put in bags and boxes, Martin gently interrupts her: "Can I just ask you something? Is there still a lot you feel you need to do?"
"Yes," she says, "I mean no. I'm just nervous."
"I can always come back later if you are not ready," says the doctor.
Mum sits down and listens to the doctor. Then she takes a deep breath and says, "OK. I am ready."
At 7pm, with my father, brother and me around her bed as well as Martin, who has given her the injection, Mum goes to sleep.
In Futurama, the ubiquitous Suicide Booth features in more than one episode. I am sure there is a Dutch engineer working on developing one right now.
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