Ageism

Euthanasia: How ageism warps the debate

By Jane Caro

The elderly are often called vulnerable, but they do not necessarily lose their common sense or their desire for autonomy as they age. (AAP/Glenn Hunt)

An elderly friend of mine (she is in her late 80s) has put together a very thorough suicide plan.

When she feels she has had enough or if she receives a diagnosis that offers nothing but decline, misery and suffering, she will take her own life.

She also plans to warn friends and family via a note on the door telling them not to enter but to call the police to save them from finding her body.

She talks about her plan very cheerfully. She is not a fool and knows that at her age death is not far away.

She simply wants to control her demise in the same way as she has controlled her life.

To her, it is about her dignity and her rights as an individual. She has repeated on many occasions that she particularly wants to avoid what she calls scornfully "lovely palliative care".

The very idea of that, she says, sends shivers down her spine.

The next major life event

Unsurprisingly, my friend is a passionate supporter of voluntary euthanasia. Among her peers, this is common.

Indeed, if you ever attend an event where the issue is debated you will see that the audience is full of grey heads. For them, death is not theoretical.

Younger people often regard death and dying as things that lie a long way in the future.

For the elderly, however, death is the next major event in a long life.

It is interesting to watch their reaction when a well-meaning medico or religious figure begins to give their reasons for not supporting the right to die.

Sometimes the angry mutterings are audible. My friend is given to asking forthright and blunt questions at such forums, designed to make her opponents squirm.

It is my observation that people do not get more biddable as they get older. On the contrary, many of their inhibitions seem to disappear and they can become quite confrontational.

They need to.

Vulnerable isn't a synonym for older

Recently, I helped launch a research report by The Benevolent Society (not, I hasten to add, an official supporter of euthanasia) about the attitudes that drive ageism.

As I read the report, it struck me how much ageism plays its part in the way elderly people are talked about in the euthanasia debate.

They are often called the "vulnerable" elderly and much attention is given to their fears about being a burden on either their children or society. There is a concern that frail older people could be coerced into ending their lives.

Some of these concerns are important but good, comprehensive legislation with sensible and strict guidelines should be able to protect people from such unscrupulous and rare pressure.

However, old people do not necessarily lose their common sense or their desire for autonomy as they age and nor should they lose their rights to make their own decisions.

They do not become wrinkly, grey-haired children with the passing of the years.

Patronising begins at 60

I have noticed since I turned 60 and my hair has gone quite grey, a tendency for some younger men (taxi drivers are particularly guilty) to call me "dear".

I sense it is the beginning of the belittling that inevitably accompanies ageing.

Even the exaggerated awe that greets older people who still run marathons or swing dance carries is a form of talking down to the old. Just because I am getting older and greyer does not mean I am losing my marbles or am any less deserving of being taken seriously.

Perhaps that is why the elderly mutter so furiously as they watch those younger than themselves discuss their rights to decide their own fate. They feel that they are not being taken seriously. They — quite rightly — feel patronised and condescended and they resent it. We will too, if we are lucky enough to live as long as they have.

Worse, the way their independence and autonomy is so easily dismissed, the way they are stereotyped as somehow no longer capable of making their own decisions, only confirms their fears about being at the mercy of such people when they are at their most vulnerable.

A sense of control

Older people are among the fiercest supporters of the voluntary euthanasia legislation currently before both the NSW and Victorian parliaments.

In 2013, men aged 85 and over had the highest rate of suicide by any age group in Australia. If my friend is any guide elderly women may soon not be far behind them.

But suicide means people leaving this world before they need to, and necessarily leaving it when they are alone.

Worse, it may mean some people killing themselves unnecessarily.

Many years ago now, when she was much younger, my friend had a serious operation.

She was given a morphine drip which allowed her to administer a dose of the painkiller whenever she felt the need. She found she hardly ever used it because the mere fact of knowing she was in control was enough.

Perhaps that is all most of us seek when we face the end of our lives. A sense that we — not the doctors, not the clergy, not the Government, not our children or even our partner — get to decide how we go.