Should a Daughter Help her Mother Commit Suicide?

Zoe Fitzgerald Carter was living in Berkeley with her husband and two daughters when her mother began to call her from Washington DC to talk about ending her life.  Carter’s mother, Margaret, a vivacious, intelligent woman, was suffering from Parkinson’s and a host of other ailments and could no longer stand the pain. She wanted to take charge of her life – and her death – by committing suicide.

But Margaret wanted the help of Carter and her two sisters, and that request, and all its ramifications are the subject of Carter’s moving memoir, Imperfect Endings: A Daughter's Tale of Life and Death. Published just last week by Simon and Schuster, Imperfect Endings is already provoking discussion about filial loyalty, love, and assisted suicide. The book was excerpted in “O” Oprah Winfrey’s magazine, was praised in the New York Times’ Health Blog, and was picked as one of Barnes & Noble’s ‘Discover Great New Writers” books for 2010.

Carter will be appearing at Book Passage in Corte Madera at 7 pm March 11 and at 7 pm March 18 at Read Books in Danville. In anticipation of her appearances, Ghost Word posed a few questions to Carter.

When your mother first started to raise the question of killing herself, did

you take her seriously? How long was it before you believed she truly wanted

to end her life? How long before you could accept her decision?

         My mother started talking about ending her life eighteen months before she did it, and I did not take her seriously at first. I understood that she was worried about where her Parkinson’s disease was taking her, but I did not think she would kill herself. 

         It wasn’t until she got a prescription for a lethal dose of Seconal, and arranged to meet a member of the Hemlock Society’s “Caring Friends” network, that I began to understand how determined she was. Accepting her decision was a lot harder. I think it happened in increments but it wasn’t until about two weeks before she started her final fast that I gave her my overt support. I realized I had to get my own needs and desires out of the equation.

Do you think your mother knew how difficult her decision would be for you

and your sisters, particularly as helping her could put you at legal risk?

Or were her pain and discomfort so bad she could not think beyond that?

         I think my mother was so caught up in the “how and when “of her death that it was difficult for her to focus on how my sisters and I felt about it. She had a tendency to call us up in the middle of the day and casually ask: “How would May first be for me to kill myself?” It drove me a little crazy, frankly.

         On the other hand, she chose to end her life by fasting so we could be there with her without legal risk. (It is not illegal to witness a suicide, only to participate in it.) That was a very selfless choice.

         But then – just to make things complicated -- when the fast wasn’t progressing quickly enough, she took a large amount of morphine. Although she survived it and lived three more days, I found this really upsetting. It raised some very potent issues about the psychic and even moral meaning of participating in someone’s death. I don’t think we can gloss over that part.

Your book raises the question of loyalty. To whom do we owe it? Did you

think part of being a good daughter was helping your mother die?

         I think this is one of the key questions in the book. I really struggled with what it meant to be a “good daughter” – help my mother kill herself, or talk her out of it. One of the reasons I wrote the book was to revisit this dilemma and try to understand it better.

After having helped your mother hasten her death, do you think assisted

suicide should be legalized? What problems would it solve? What issues might

it raise?

         I do think it should be legal, despite feeling that assisted suicide is tough on families and loved ones. At this point, physician assisted suicide is only legal in Oregon and Washington although Montana just passed a similar law. 

         One of the advantages of making assisted suicide legal is that these laws lay out very specific guidelines and regulations. I’m not sure about Montana, but in Oregon and Washington, two doctors have to determine that the person has less than six months left to live and there is a two-week waiting period. 

         There are other stipulations as well: for example, doctors can request that patients get evaluated by a psychiatrist. Obviously, you do not want people getting doctors to help them to die if they are only depressed or in crisis.

Some people worry that certain groups might feel pressure to end their lives if assisted suicide is legal, but if you look at the states where it is legal, not that many people take advantage of it. And the upside is enormous. People like my mother, who are in their right mind and want to die, can get help and support from a medical professional, and their family members are not forced to negotiate what can feel like a Sophie’s Choice between watching their loved ones suffer and entering the murky, guilt-producing world of “hastened death.”

        

      

How have you talked to your two daughters about their grandmother’s death?

What is their reaction?

         I talked to both my girls about it before the book came out. They did not have any idea that my mother hadn’t died naturally so it was a surprise to them. Although they were both in D.C. with my mother during the last two weeks of her life, they were only four and eight at the time and I didn’t think it was right to burden them with that knowledge. It would have been confusing.

         They’re 13 and 17 now and have both read the book and liked it.  We’ve talked a lot about the importance of preserving our own memories of my mother and how the book is just a small slice of all that happened and all we felt about her.

Ten years after your mother's death, do you think that she did the right thing?

         I think she did what she needed to do and I admire her strong-mindedness. She was absolutely fearless and unblinking at the end. But I don’t think there is ever a right or wrong in these situations. Everyone does the best they can under really complicated circumstances.