The Burden

Jersey has just passed approval to draw up assisted dying legislation for the terminally ill at end of life, rejecting the second part of the proposal for unbearable suffering as a cause. Yet there were a fair number of States members in favour of that option. 19 for it, 27 against.

I was much struck by Matthew Parris recent article in the Times, where he argues that assisted dying being legalised is a good thing, that it is something that society needs, and many people are crying out for. He also argues that this will normalise the idea of assisted death, which again he thinks is a good thing. It will be beneficial, in the long run to society, and as he says: “Life itself has its price. As costs rise, there will be a point at which our culture (and any culture) will begin to call for a restraining hand. I believe that when it comes to the cost of keeping very enfeebled people alive when life has become wretched for them, we’re close to that point.”

Isaac Asimov’s “Pebble in the Sky” looks at a future society, where the means to deal with overpopulation, and the burden of the old or infirm, is a scheme of legalised euthanasia. In this story Earth in the future is a backwater, where citizens must die on their sixtieth birthday. This is referred to euphemistically only as "The Sixty". Anyone who is unable to work is also euthanized. People who try to cheat the system are almost universally reviled. To be a good citizen is to take "The Sixty", and Asimov shows people enjoying a sunset holiday, the trip of a lifetime, before taking that step, going out on a high!

Asimov was writing in the 1950s and set old age as sixty years old – “The Sixty”. Given the change in demographics, and that people are fitter longer, I have assumed in this poem “the Eighty” rather than sixty years old.

This poem, then, is a reflection on the idea of Matthew Parris that assisted dying will become a normalised form of society, and also a look back as Asimov’s picture of such a future society. This is a society in which assisted dying is welcomed, not feared. Avoidance is the exception, not the rule.

I offer no moral judgement in the poem, just a glimpse of what a future might look like - and also feel like to those who live and die there. It is for the reader to decide if they like that vision.

The Burden

It’s time, the eighty, as they call it:
Time to lay aside life, to commit;
Not or be a burden to self or others:
To follow your fathers and mothers,
In choosing the path enshrined in law;
A fastidious peoples came to draw
A line in the sand, but we saw the light:
Growing infirmity of age is a blight,
And the old suffer so, once such pain,
Had to be endured, a prison chain;
And where was compassion there:
Old age became a time of fear?
Grow old along with me, it was said,
But such a burden on society ahead:
Not to be selfish, to think of the rest,
The younger generation, full of zest;
Unencumbered by cost and expense
Of such taboos, we now dispense
Of shallow values with better rules,
And even teach it in our schools;
Old age is fading into the limelight:
Better to go into that good night;
So where there is despair, hope,
When one can no longer cope;
Where there is sadness, joy:
And unbearable suffering alloy;
This is now the kindest way to go
From this life, this we surely know,
Full of compassion, love and care,
Bringing hope where was despair;
Make me an instrument of peace:
That my choice is now to cease;
So to crown a noble end of life,
And not end in misery and strife;
We have moved passed lament:
Death is now a great moment,
Time of solemn commitment,
With all passion finally spent:
Time for good wishes, a feast,
To celebrate a joy released;
A weary thanks, I nod my head,
As the doctor comes to my bed;
I will do my duty, burden to none,
And soon will all ending be done;
Time now to make a good death,
Into darkness, take a final breath:
We make heaven here on earth:
Make a life now so much worth;
Deliver us from evil pain, again
This is our kingdom now. Amen.