The Right to Die Is a Personal Matter

I’m praying, I’m begging, I’m even offering money.

If by some unexpected turn I end up hospitalized in a vegetative state with virtually no chance of recovery, please kill me.

I’m hereby putting out a contract on myself, offering $1,000, a pair of field-level Dodger tickets and my bowling trophy to the first person who storms the hospital and sends me into the Great Beyond.

Pull the plug.

Put a pillow over my head.

Make me watch Bill O’Reilly.

Whatever it takes.

(Note to doctors: Feel free to harvest any of my organs that might keep someone else alive, although I’d steer clear of the liver.)

I’m asking for reader assistance in case nobody believes my wife when she says I authorized her to yank my feeding tube.

I don’t want the courts, Congress, the president of the United States or anyone who goes around waving photos of aborted fetuses to decide what’s morally appropriate for me.

Don’t get me wrong. Abortion is a tragedy, and so is the act of pulling the plug on a brain-damaged human being.

I’m not suggesting the Florida case of Terri Schiavo isn’t a can of worms legally and morally, with her husband and parents in disagreement about whether the brain-damaged woman’s feeding tube should have been removed.

In fact, I’m with those who argue it’s cruel to let Schiavo slowly starve while we all stand around on national death watch. If the decision is that she has a right to die, why aren’t we evolved enough to make it happen as quickly and humanely as possible?

The Schiavo case stands as a reminder to get my own living will in order. If I can’t tell the difference between my baby daughter and a bag of groceries, God forbid, and if my only movements and expressions are random and involuntary, I’d rather not hang around, thank you.

Start the cyanide drip.

Better yet, make it a lethal dose of tequila.

In lieu of flowers, send a donation to the Hemlock Society, or whatever they call it now.

I just saw the movie “The Sea Inside,” in which an alert and intelligent quadriplegic begs family, friends and the Spanish government to let him die. His loved ones are all conflicted for obvious reasons. How could they deliver a lethal blow to a man with so much grace and wit that women still keep falling in love with him?

He doesn’t advocate his choice for other disabled people, the quadriplegic says. To each his own. But he has decided, after being immobile for 27 years following a diving accident, that he would rather die with dignity than continue suffering with the memories of a full and active life.

He also insists that no one but he should have the right to determine his fate. No judge, no government, no religion has a monopoly on virtue.

The quadriplegic finally tells an admirer there is only one way she can prove her love for him.

Amen.

Dying doesn’t scare me as much as the idea of staring past the people I live for.

Look, if I’m in bad shape but there’s a realistic chance I might one day be up and around, by all means, do everything possible to save me, and don’t be afraid to overbill Blue Cross.

But if I were no more alert than a cucumber, the last thing I’d want is for my family to stand vigil day after day, month after month, year after year, as nurses change my bedpan every few hours.

I appreciate life too much to have them sacrifice theirs.