Stories like this always hits me hard.
Ana Estrada is a 43-year-old terminally ill Peruvian woman who filed a suit to urge her country not to enforce a law that punishes those who help terminal patients end their own lives.
At the same time, she’s also asking her government to establish regulations that will allow patients like her the right to choose how and when to die.
Estrada is suffering from polymyositis, a debilitating disease that wastes away muscles and has no cure. She saw it took away her ability to walk by the age of 20 and eventually her freedom to eat and breathe on her own as of 2015.
“My privacy, my autonomy, my independence — I lost it,” Estrada said.
Dr. Gonzalo Gianella, a specialist in respiratory diseases who has treated Estrada, explained that the illness is methodically shutting down her body because without functioning muscles, she will eventually begin to have trouble speaking, swallowing, breathing, moving, and doing things on her own.
At present, Estrada is almost completely paralyzed and requires round-the-clock care, relying on a feeding tube in her belly and another tube inserted into her windpipe to help her breathe.
As Estrada wages her legal battle, she gained the support of her country’s public defender’s office.
Walter Gutiérrez, a public defender, explained that Estrada’s cause is not a defense for death but a plea for life and to live it with dignity.
Reading Estrada’s story, I am awed by her courage to take on her country’s state institutions so that they will listen to what she has to say. That’s not an easy feat for anyone.
Estrada’s disease took away her control over how she wants to live her life but she’s taking it back over something that she still could — making her country listen and see her reason why euthanasia should not be prohibited and why those who assist terminal patients end their lives should not be criminally prosecuted for it.
Her situation reminds me of that of Bebi, a strong independent woman from Mexico who had to live through the horrors of her own terminal cancer. (You can read her story here.)
In a heartbreaking Buzzfeed article written by her niece Luisa Rollenhagen, she narrated how her tia Bebi wanted to be allowed to end her life at a Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.
Her aunt even wrote in her will that if “faced with the inevitability of dying in a manner incompatible with my desired quality and dignity of life, I wish to go to Dignitas in Switzerland and die by my own hand, with my peace of mind intact.”
Sadly, Bebi ran out of time and died in a way she explicitly wanted to avoid — broken and in pain, humiliation, and anger — all because she didn’t get the green light to be legally allowed to do how she wished her life to end.
While the idea of assisted dying has always been around, euthanasia is not an easy topic to talk about.
I haven’t met another person who shares my view about it, but throughout the years, my stand has always been the same — I believe euthanasia, under specific circumstances, clear-cut limitations, and strict regulations, should be legally allowed.
I don’t claim to be an expert on the topic or have a professional medical background of any sort, but I don’t think it’s right to consider it as a crime per se.
If someone’s medical condition has placed them beyond any medical help and prevent them from living genuinely meaningful lives, why can’t euthanasia be considered a legal option?
When waking up every day has become just a matter of existing and suffering has stopped being a choice but a permanent reality, why must assisted dying be considered wrong?
In these situations, isn’t euthanasia the kind and humane thing to allow?
With all of that being said, I’m still terrified of death — the fact that it can come so abruptly, the fact that it can be very painful, and the fact that it’s final, like the last curtain call before everything goes dark — these things scare the shit out of me.
But over time, I’ve also realized that there are things far worse than death itself and that’s dying slowly and painfully — the kind that gradually strips you of your freedom, your choices, your control, your dignity, and your chance to a quality life while you’re still alive.
As David Goodall, a 104-year-old Australian scientist who campaigned for the legalization of assisted dying and eventually ended his life at a Swiss clinic, had said, the process of dying can be rather unpleasant, but it need not be. (You can read his story here.)
