Should we stay or should we go – Lionel Shriver

In this excellent novel, set in the UK, a married couple, who are a family doctor and a nurse, who have both treated many elderly patients, consider how they would like their own lives to end when they are elderly themselves.  Various different scenarios are described, ranging from killing themselves, when they are very old, to ending up in a care home.

“Should We Stay or Should We Go?” is a fascinating book which I would recommend we all read and then, having lent it to our closest relatives and friends, we can have frank, personal discussions, with them, about what we would want for ourselves.

When reading this novel, I thought of a possible new acronym for the Right-to-Die movement.  We should all campaign for MARS (Medically-Assisted Rational Suicide) so that, when the time comes, we can all fly off to this distant planet!  Personally, now in my 91st year, my own preference would be to travel from my home in the UK (where, I believe, any change in the law is still several years away) to Switzerland to be assisted, in ending my life, by one of the wonderful organizations there which are willing to help suffering foreigners.