Perhaps what is messed up is people seeing it as somehow being undignified to be demented and incontinent or whatever. When we are new born babies, we are like that and everyone is fine with that.
When I get very old, I do hope the people around me recognise that I have more agency than a newborn baby.
My impression (happy to be corrected) is that when people say they want to "die with dignity", what they mean is minimising the period when they lack agency. Sometimes disease does cause us to lose all agency doesn't it?
I haven't really got a coherant view about all of this myself. That is why I was asking everyone on here. I was struck by what Amy Proffitt was saying. She was wanting better resourced palliative end-of-life care, but very much not wanting this assisted dying bill to go through.
Coronation Street (the TV soap) currently has a storyline about a character with MND and wishing to have assisted dying. I thought they did a good job showing all kinds of consequent strains in the relationships with those around him. The situation seemed similar in a Louis Theroux episode interviewing families where it was legal in the USA.
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