My good friend, Jim, had an aunt some years ago who suddenly took to her bed at the age of 38. She spents weeks in the hospital taking first one test, then another test, but the medical profession of that era could find nothing precisely wrong with her. She lost weight, but the staff insisted that she ate her meals. And she continued on a downhill slide until she finally died. An autopsy concluded nothing negative, no reason for her early death but, nevertheless she was dead.

Her death was ruled by natural causes but one of her physcians told her husband that she lost the will to live and that was what defeated her. Why did she lose that will? No one knew but he was certain that was the primary cause.

So, long before the "right to die" issue came to the top a women in Iowa found an unexplainable method to end her life for reasons only she knew.

I think everyone has a right to live as long as they wish, luck permitting, and that they should have something to say about dying as well. I understand about suicides because I lived through one such period that upended part of my families lives so I don't approve of such endings but I can see where the agonies of age might tempt someone to end it all and if that should happen they should have options available for an assist out of their aching body into eternity. Getting old is not for sissies. It takes a lot more get-up-and-go after your get-up-and-go has already got-up-and-went to get-up-and-go some more. Trust me on that.

Gramps

As far as the "right to die" is concerned. I'll admit my views on the subject are no where near as clear as they were before I saw my mother go through a long downward slide and then finally pass away in June of this year.

The last time I saw her was a few days before her death. By that time, she hardly recognized me and showed no sign of knowing who I was talking about when I spoke of my children and her daughters and other grandchildren. Still she smiled and seemed more content at that time than I'd seen her in months.

I know my mother had no fear of death. She graduated from high school in the class of 1940 and 10% of her class - 20% of the males - didn't live to see their 5th high school reunion in 1945. During the war years she worked at a flying school and many, many, many of the young men she met went overseas and never returned. A terrible number never even survived training.

Still she clung to life to the end. She was a religious woman who knew that she would be rewarded for the way she lived her life in death.

Still after watching her slow decline and death, it's hard for me to know how the "right to die" would not become the "expectation to die" or the "duty to die" at some point.

I have no good answers on this one. It's a tough question and I'm sure should we enact public health care, it will be one asked by many as to how far we go in extending life for someone who has lost the will to live.