Mort.

Is it possible for someone like me - or like you - to arrange for themselves the death that they want?

Terry Pratchett, Choosing to Die

British fantasy author Terry Pratchett wants to die.

Actually, as Mr. Pratchett often has his characters say, that sentence is wrong in every particular (except the part about being a British fantasy author) but it's quite a useful lie.  Under normal circumstances, Terry Pratchett would have no more desire to die than anyone else, but unfortunately his circumstances are no longer exactly what one might call "normal".

As I've already discussed in a couple of previous posts, the 62-year old Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease three years ago, a particularly unpleasant fate for a man so noted for his wit and creativity.  Since then, Pratchett has begun a slow process of deterioration. He has lost the ability to type, but has continued to write and is just finishing the first draft of his next Discworld book, albeit by dictating the content to his assistant.  However, he is aware that this is just the beginning:

I know that the time will come when words will fail me. When I can no longer write my books, I'm not sure that I will want to go on living.

This is not hyperbole.  Pratchett has begun to look into the options for assisted suicide, and has recorded his research in a one-hour documentary entitled Choosing to Die.

I found the documentary a little disturbing. Pratchett focuses on a Swiss organization called Dignitas, that will, for a fee, help someone die, and meets with two people who have chosen to use their service - Peter Smedley, a 71 year old man with motor neuron disease, and Andrew Colgan, a 42 year old man with multiple sclerosis who had already attempted suicide (obviously without succeeding).

The documentary actually follows Peter Smedley through the entire process - yes, the viewer has a front-row seat to his death, as he first swallows a stomach-settler to ensure that the poison will stay down, followed by the poison itself and then a somewhat macabre chocolate treat. (It is Switzerland, after all.) There's a brief horrible moment when he begins to choke and requests water which he is not given, followed by a ghastly rattling noise as his lungs begin to stop working.

Eventually he passes from unconsciousness into death, all under the camera's watchful eye.

And that's where I took a bit of exception to the documentary approach.  Dignitas takes every precaution to ensure that their clients are in full possession of their faculties and completely aware of what they are doing, and there is no pressure applied to follow through on the process.  Peter Smedley is a model of composure and grace throughout, but I have to think that having a camera crew in the room might well stop someone from changing their mind at the last minute - personally, I'd prefer the option of deciding that a few more months of life still had some attraction for me without a zoom lens nearby to record my change of heart.

The documentary ends on a quiet note, with Pratchett looking back to the snow that fell after Peter Smedley's suicide, and pondering his own ending:

I would like to die out in the sunshine...I suppose that sometimes the sun shines in Switzerland.

Death, or more accurately the the anthropomorphic personification of the end of life, is one of the more popular and frequently utilized characters in Pratchett's Discworld books. Death is portrayed as a stern but sympathetic figure, who does not actually end life but who comes to collect the spirit of the departed, and whose calm demeanor is often a relief to the recently departed.  Perhaps this is expressive of Terry Pratchett's philosophy regarding his own death, self-managed or not.

- Sid