Nearly three years ago my Mom was able to die with dignity in her own home in a way that was nearly identical to her expressed wishes. It was pure luck.
She had an end of life directive and a DNR that kept her out of the hospital. That wasn’t the lucky part. Her body closing up shop the way it did, that was lucky. She would have hated hanging in a liminal state for months after her aneurysm. Because of the nature of the aneurysm, she didn’t have to. We had a nice day and night with her looking at photo albums and watching home movies, then she started drifting off. A painless week later she was gone. Lucky.
Delaware doesn’t have a “death with Dignity Law” right now, but it should.
In 1997, only Switzerland allowed their residents to decide if they wanted to end their life, but compassion for end-of-life sensibilities has seen that number rise dramatically across the West.
Since 2015, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada, New Zealand, Spain, the Netherlands, Colombia, Germany, Austria, Portugal, five Australian states, ten American states, and D.C. have legalized assisted dying. Countries that are largely Catholic such as Ireland, Chile, Italy, and Uruguay are currently crafting legislation to follow suit.