Festival explores life, death and the law
How do we want to die? About 200 hardy souls left their warm beds and braved horizontal rain to face the question head on at the Christchurch WORD festival.
Assisted-dying advocate and husband of Lecretia Seales, Matt Vickers joined LA mortician, author and blogger Caitlin Doughty and University of Canterbury sociologist and author Ruth McManus on Saturday to discuss ‘‘death denial’’ and acceptance with journalist Cate Brett.
Vickers, who lives in New York, returned to New Zealand this week to speak to his submission to the health select committee investigating an assisted dying bill. He will launch his book, Lecretia’s Choice – A Story of Life, Death and the Law in parliament today.
Vickers read out Seales’ plea from the book – which he said was her way of taking control of terminal brain cancer.
‘‘As far as I am concerned if I get to the point where I can no longer communicate with my husband then for all intents and purposes I will already be dead.
‘‘Nor do I wish to be a prisoner in my own body unable to move, lying in my own excrement – that is not a dignified way to die.’’
Doughty said although some philosophies such as Buddhism suggested giving up control, for her and many others, retaining control over death resonated.
‘‘I want it for my own death because it’s such a chaotic time and to have these little things like that, that are somewhat measures of control, I think can bring a lot of empowerment to the dying process.’’
An end of life option act, enabling terminally-ill adult patients to take medication to end their life had recently come in to force in California, Dougherty said. ’’We worked very hard to make that happen.’’
McManus said she expected New Zealand to drag its heels over assisted-dying legislation. ’’I do think . . . it will be when other countries, perhaps Australia, get their legislation together.’’
Doughty, who ran a not-for-profit funeral home, said the US funeral industry was largely an ‘‘old boys club’’ keen to protect its business.
She wanted families to be able to do things their own way. ’’I don’t think our unrealistic beauty standards need to be extended postmortem, a dead body is beautiful in its own way.’’
Among the audience were doctors, parents wanting advice on talking about death to their children, and funeral industry workers.
For New Plymouth mortuary technician Katy Gerrand it was an opportunity to meet Doughty.
‘‘People need to know there are other options. There’s huge environmental impacts from the current [embalming] processes.’’