John Freidah

Physician-Assisted Suicide

Not since Roe vs. Wade, when the U.S. Supreme Court debated questions about the beginning of life, had society wrestled with such a fundamental question: Who controls the time and method of our death? If faced with a death that we find unacceptable, should we be allowed to have our doctor help us commit suicide? Noel David Earley, of Lincoln, Rhode Island, dieing of Lou Gehrig’s disease, had made up his mind. Understanding his fate - slow but inexorable paralysis - he decided to control his death. He dedicated the last year of his life to a public campaign for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. During a year in which the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed this very issue, Earley's activism and announcements of his suicide brought international attention. However, the illness he vowed never to give in to soon incapacitated him. He no longer had the strength to kill himself. Championing choice, Earley died in the way he had most feared.

Earley decides to dedicate the last year of his life to fight for his right to control the circumstances of his death.
   
Earley sees his Veterans Administration doctor. The two always have lively discussions. They never agree on Earley’s wish for a physician-assisted suicide. Apart from the legal prohibition, the V.A. forbids such an act.
   
At a press conference, Earley tells 11 news organizations that he will wait to kill himself until his voice has gone, and his work is done."“My life, my choice: that’s the way I always told it. My life, my choice."
     
  
Rhode Island state senators debate two opposing bills: one to legalize and one to criminalize physician-assisted suicide. Ultimately, the governor signs the bill that criminalizes the practice.
   
Earley heads to the RI Senate Judiciary Committee to testify on bills to legalize and to criminalize physician-assisted suicide. The latter, says Earley, is contrary to the spirit and letter of human rights, so unsupported by evidence of necessity, so intemperate and harsh, that on it’s face is constitutionally invalid.
   
At Rhode Island Hospital, Earley's lecture on physician-assisted suicide gets mixed reviews. When some of the doctors point out the unresolved questions, he urges them to trust their hearts.
     
  
At the farm of Bob Zuck, Earley shares time with his good friend. "Bob is like a brother to me. I am grateful for the time he takes to help."
   
Earley has resisted a feeding tube, but finally has one implanted - yielding both to his inability to swallow and to his friends’ urging. The issue of physician-assisted suicide is always a point of contention with the doctors at the Veterans Administration, where Earley goes for medical care.
   
Earley receives the coffin he commissioned from renowned furniture maker Hank Gilpin. "What a beautiful piece of craftsmanship it is - like a piece of fine furniture." And like a piece of furniture, it stands in Earley’s bedroom for about six weeks.
     
  
Earley’s once-muscular legs reveal the ravages of his disease. His friends Bob Zuck, left, and Steven Ames, position him in his hospital bed, now moved in the living room.
   
Noel is raced to the hospital when his breathing is labored.
   
Earley can no longer even sit in the bathtub. With just one arm - all that remains of his mobility - he tries to help his nursing assistant, Rita Senna, give him a sponge bath.
     
  
Earley now lives the nightmare he sought to avoid: by postponing his death he has weakened to the point at which he can no longer commit suicide. Held by a friend, he gags trying to clear his breathing passages; finally, he agrees to a trip to the hospital.
   
The logistics of caring for Earley now weigh on his friends, who have become his 24-hour caretakers. Earley refuses to go into a nursing home; the grandmother who raised him was put into one, a memory that pains him.
   
After months of loss of bodily functions, Earley refuses food and water and has a “natural death.” After so much talk of suicide, the state medical examiner has to be sure, and agents come for Earley's body.
     
  
Agents from the State Medical Examiner’s office remove Earley’s body.