‘If I want to die, why can’t I do so with dignity?’

ENDURING intense pain and suffering because of an auto-immune disease that affects the central nervous system, Marie Curran asks: “If I want to die, why won’t you let me do so with dignity? Instead I must suffer a debilitating pain and degrading death.”

When Marie was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, her partner Tom Curran found himself thrust into the debate surrounding assisted suicide. “MS, technically is not a terminal illness. However, the symptoms of the disease end up killing the patient as the immune system begins to shut down. When Marie was diagnosed with the illness, she knew one thing and one thing only — she wanted to die with dignity, not waste away to nothing.

“We informed ourselves of the symptoms of MS and what could be the eventual outcome, and decided to look for alternative methods to handle the disease when it go too painful — or came to a point where Marie felt she no longer wanted to live.”