The choice of suicide over life, regardless of the difficulties, is always tragic. Often, victims do not consider or tend to undervalue the positive influence that their lives can have on others. At onetime, I personally considered ending it all.
My view of assisted suicide is colored by my near-fatal motorcycle accident in 1999. As I awoke from a medically induced coma, I soon realized that the accident had left me with complete paraplegia (T-7). Until then, I lay unconscious and oblivious in a trauma center. I briefly contemplated the emotional pull of life versus death. Fortunately, I had a strong and supportive extended family who helped me to choose hope to keep going. I still had to relearn everything about my new body and adjust to a manual wheelchair.
Before my injury, on multiple occasions as a police officer, I was assigned to stop a suicide. This also gave me insight. In one case, I was dispatched to the home of a man who had attempted to asphyxiate himself inside his running car and closed garage. Upon entry, I successfully pulled him away from the carbon monoxide and drew him safely outside. He had been depressed, but was lucky. After the intervention, he received mental health treatment and recovered. I have also personally witnessed the devastating and long-lasting effects of suicide on a victim’s family and friends. Naturally, they wonder why the victim did not seek lifesaving mental health treatment, or during an advanced illness, palliative care and/or hospice.
Other Posts
In Opposition to The Introduction and Hearings on Legislation to Legalize Physician Assisted Suicide in Virginia
For many Virginians Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS) would be neither compassionate nor a choice. For persons living with disabilities, senior citizens and people of color who too often do not receive equal access to care, legalizing PAS will raise their risks in our health care system.
No medically assisted death in Virginia
We’ve all known people whose final days were marked by pain and distress. We shouldn’t be complacent about these things, but hastening death is not the answer. We do not need a self-killing-with-medications law in Virginia.