My life, my death, my choice

CATHARINE COOPER

This is my life.

These are my fingers, pressing computer keys to communicate my

thoughts.

These are my arms, my hands, toes, feet and stomach.

This is my body, which when last I checked, did not belong to the

federal, the state, nor the local government.

I am not the chattel of my country. I bear no identifying number,

although my fingerprints could be used to isolate me as a unique

individual habituating this planet.

My mother likes to remind me that when I was 2 years old, I

declared my independence. She’s right. The date coincides with the

imminent birth of my brother. With all the attention and care focused

on him, I determined that independence was a valuable entity. The

price of this declaration would figure when I turned 5 and wanted to

run away from home. I was told to devise my own solution to retrieve

the suitcase from the closet’s top shelf. Never one for subtleties,

mother raised me in a strong Germanic tradition of self-reliance and

responsibility.

Through the years, these guiding principles have manifested in an

ever-evolving fashion.

There were the years of study and learning, the years of job

search and career decisions, the choice of mate and the creation of

children. At every turn, not only was I responsible for the

decisions, but for their outcome. If things did not go well, it was

no one’s fault but my own.

As a citizen of the United States, I’ve been granted overwhelming

freedom to make these ongoing choices. The foundation of these

decisions rests upon the Declaration of Indepen- dence’s inalienable

Rights: “... life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The right to life is a uniquely controversial subject. Its

orientation has fluctuated throughout human history. Ancient Greeks

callously discarded deformed or retarded babies. The Chinese, under a

one-child rule, quietly disposed of newly born females.

As medical science has advanced its understanding of the human

form, it has become common practice to save everything -- no matter

the emotional or fiscal cost.

The right to life is inextricably entwined with the right to

death. As I grew from child to adult, conversations found their way

to the question, “Would you want to live if ... ?”

We would fill in the blank. At the time, the threat of nuclear war

was a daily topic, so an obvious choice was “... if everyone were

destroyed?” “... if you were maimed or severely burned?” “... if you

could no longer walk?” “... if you could no longer speak?” “... if

you could no longer care for yourself?”

The conversations were not then, and are not now, treated lightly.

Countless films, books, and religious texts have been written on the

right to die. The title of the Richard Dreyfuss film, “Whose Life Is

This Anyway?” brings the heart of the subject to the forefront.

Death is the one thing we grow up knowing. We have not yet managed

a scientific solution to surpass the gate, and the ongoing joke, that

no one gets out of here alive, stands true.

There are various religious beliefs that deal with the passage

from life to death, but the certainty of the demise of our bodily

form is not in question. What we do wonder is when and how we will

die.

When my college friend took his life in the midst of a struggle

with AIDS, I was saddened but understood. He was a brilliant thinker,

who said that his mind was failing, and that, for him, to live

without the power of thought was untenable.

My grandmother was 94 when she broke her second hip, and was in no

mood for another lengthy rehabilitation. She refused to eat, and

doctors advised my father to insert an intravenous feeding tube

without fully communicating to him that its removal would define her

death. For the next two years, my grandmother slipped in and out of

lucidity, stared at a television screen and whispered in my ear that

she wanted to die. Finally, pneumonia freed her of a body that she

long wished to leave.

It seems our power to love must be tempered by our power to let

go. I want the decisions that surround how I live and die to continue

to be my own.

Thanks, Mom, for the independent push.

My medical directives prevent family members from loving me into a

form of life I would not choose for myself, or a government from

intervening.

This is my life.

* CATHARINE COOPER can be reached at (949) 497-5081 or

[email protected].