Right to die with dignity is most basic human right of all.

We should all have that option of ending our lives without meaningless suffering. You shouldn’t have to go to Switzerland

If you ever watched someone you love die of a long and painful terminal illness, then you know that the moment of death is never the worst of it.

Nothing rips your heart out like seeing someone you love suffer needlessly.

Nothing is more painful than seeing a loved one fighting a battle that can never be won.

Nothing is more heart wrenching than seeing a long, good life reduced to days and nights of fear, pain and distress.

Nothing is worse than all of that. Not even death.

So when I heard about the 83-year-old OAP who found the courage to end his life in the Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas rather than endure the agonizing decline of dementia, I thought – good for you, sir.

Human rights have become a debased concept. But here were real human rights in action.

The human right to die with dignity. The human right to spare yourself – and those you love – months and years of nothing but misery and pain.

We watch our parents get old, and then we see them become ill, and then we watch them die.

This is the everyday tragedy that touches all of our lives.

But it is grotesque, inhuman and unnecessary that the dying should have to be humiliated and tortured by whatever is killing them.

200 courageous Brits have ended their lives in Dignitas over the last ten years.

They have been both young and old.

There was Daniel James, 23, who was paralysed playing rugby.

There was Sir Edward Downes, 85, and his 74-year-old wife Joan, who died within months of each other at Dignitas.

Sir Edward was nearly blind and increasingly deaf. Lady Downes had terminal cancer.

By ending their lives at Dignitas, they spared themselves needless misery – and they also spared their families needless misery, too.

How horrible it must be to endure your own pain, fear and discomfort and at the same time have to witness the unbearable sadness and endless stress that your illness inflicts on your family.

What sweet relief to be able to end it all.

What a generous gift to your loved ones to say – you have also suffered too much. What a blessing to be able to say – enough.

I watched both my parents die of cancer. In the end, both of them suffered terribly.

I will remember their distress until the day I die. My dad and mum both had good and happy lives.

They both deserved to be spared all that torment right at the end.

I will never know but I don’t think either my mum or my dad would have opted for assisted suicide because clinging to life remains our most basic instinct of all. But we should all have the freedom to choose.

We should all have that option of ending our lives without meaningless suffering. You shouldn’t have to go to Switzerland.

You should be able to end your life in your own home, and you should be able to do it on the NHS.

For taking the brave and rational decision to end your life when life has become unendurable is not euthanasia. It is not even suicide.

The right to die with dignity is the most basic human right of all.

(2013-06-01/mirror)