I truly believe that with the sheer amount of people entering personal care homes and with the staggering lack of adequate support staff to take proper care of them, many people have fallen between the cracks.

I do not know about you, but I would rather live out my last days with some sense of dignity, rather than be forced to live out my life in a drugged existence wearing a diaper simply because I am too out of it to even go to the washroom on my own. If that is the kind of life I am leading when I am an old woman, I would hope that I have the opportunity to leave my life with a little dignity - and not wearing a diaper.

The elderly, though, are not the only people who should have the right to make the decision to end their lives. What about a person suffering from AIDS who has only a few remaining months of illness where my health is failing and I will have not have any quality of life? I would hope that if there is no cure for me, I am terminal and it won't be quick and painless that I would also have the right to end my life.

Why would anyone actually want to live out their last days in pain and agony? And why would there be any question of my right to end my life if I so choose? I cannot see my family letting me live on if I am in pain and would not want to live to see the pain that I am inflicting on them.

Learn more about this author, A. Marie La Porte.
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