Fintan O’Toole: My father wanted to die and I promised to help him

After my mother died, my father wanted to die too. He was desolate from grief – much more, I think, than he had ever imagined. He was getting into his late eighties. He had to wear a colostomy bag. He had diabetes, which gave him terrible pain in his feet. He couldn’t walk far, so his lifelong love affair with bird-watching was over. The fellow twitchers who had formed his social group were great about trying to include him. But he began to shun them because they only reminded him of what he had lost.

This was not a whim or a passing mood. He was not deranged. His depression was not irrational

Now and then, but with increasing regularity, he would talk to me very seriously and soberly and tell me that all he really wanted was to die with dignity. I couldn’t handle it. I would change the subject, move on. I didn’t have the courage to go down into his darkness. I didn’t want to lose him.

But I knew I was failing him – even betraying him. This was not a whim or a passing mood. He was not deranged. His depression was not irrational – its sources were real and obvious. Death was the one thing he really wanted. So eventually I did talk to him properly about it. And I told him that, if he still wanted it in a few weeks, I would do it. I would find out about how to set up an assisted suicide in Switzerland and I'd organise it and go with him. I gave him my word.

I could be prosecuted

I knew that I could be prosecuted for this. I knew that many very good people would sincerely regard me as a patricide. I knew there might be bad consequences. I knew that doing it would be a nightmare, that it would haunt me for the rest of my days. But it just seemed that this was an inescapable duty imposed by that most binding of treaties: love. He had done so much for me and I had to do this thing for him.

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But after we had that conversation, a strange thing happened. My father’s agitation fell away from him. Almost immediately, his despair lifted. It just burned off like a summer morning mist.

And the reason was as clear as it was paradoxical: he stopped wanting to die because now he could die if he wanted to. He was in control. He had a choice and what he chose was to live on quite happily for a few more years. He never talked of wanting to die again until he was actually on his deathbed.

People will take strong stances on the issue, but I would suggest that very few of us are on completely solid ground

I have to admit that this is what I had gambled on. It was the biggest risk I had ever taken, or ever want to take. The promise I made to him was not a lie. I knew it could not be. He knew me far too well to be fooled. I am not a good enough actor to be able to look my father in the eye and tell him that I will help him kill himself while secretly not intending to do this at all.

But it turned out that I knew him well enough, too, to sense that what he needed was not the deed but the promise. I believed, and hoped, that once that bond of trust was created, he would be okay. And if the wager did not pay off? It was still a bet that had to be placed on the table.

Moral complexity

This moral complexity is the human reality behind the Dying with Dignity Bill that Gino Kenny has tabled and that the Dáil is due to debate on Thursday. People will take strong stances on the issue, but I would suggest that very few of us are on completely solid ground. This terrain is treacherous and shifting, with few really secure footholds.

Many people are instinctively repelled by the idea of legalising assisted dying – but if you ask them what they want for themselves if terminal illness makes their lives unbearable, they too want this choice.

A peaceful death

Many people in the caring professions do everything to keep a patient alive but know that a peaceful death may be much better than lingering pain and terror. Many know that the line between passively allowing someone to die and actively speeding up their death is much less than absolute.

My own belief – tempered in the fire of my father's death wish – is that dignity is the ultimate human desire

And conversely, many people like me who think that ultimately we do have to give people the right to die know how dangerous it is and how morally burdensome. It creates an imperative, not just to protect vulnerable people from pressure, but to provide the systems of home and hospice care that make the practical alternatives to death more attractive.

My own belief – tempered in the fire of my father’s death wish – is that dignity is the ultimate human desire and that we cannot with conscience turn away from it.

I also believe that the creation of the right framework of law, and just as importantly, of care, is not just about ushering people towards their deaths. It is about vindicating the spiritual truth that we humans are more than mere prisoners of our own bodies. In the very end, if we cannot choose to die, we cannot choose to live.