The following speech was written by Fay G10 as part of an English assignment.

What would you do… if you were told that you only had a few months left to live?

What would you do, if you know that your life is a dead end with no means of escape?

What if you had a life where you can no longer think for yourself, a life where you’re stuck in a bed all day, only being able to breathe with the help of a machine?

Imagine that your only option is to slowly, painfully, wait minutes, hours, days, months… for death.

But… what if there was a miracle? What if there was a way to let you die peacefully, ending your life with your own consent?

Many times when people hear the term “assisted suicide”, the things that come to mind are often negative. Immoral, inhumane, heartless, ruthless, the list goes on.

And…to be honest, I used to think like that too.

But what happened to my grandfather completely changed my mind. Two years ago, my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer, specifically stage 4 Adenocarcinoma.

I knew that the survival rate for this terminal illness is less than 10%; I knew that no matter what we do, it was almost impossible to keep him alive. In fact, everybody knew. What we didn’t know was that our good intentions were an act of selfishness.

We ignored the facts, lied to ourselves, believed in the slightest chance that this disease could be cured with medical treatment.

After being diagnosed with Adenocarcinoma, my grandfather had to visit the hospital for monthly checkups. These monthly checkups became weekly, then daily, until when the hospital became my grandfather’s second home.

Millions of baht were spent trying to save a life… that didn’t want to live in the first place.

And that was what made me realize, that Euthanasia needed to be approved.

There’s a Latin saying……. “Memento Mori” which means, remember that you will die. In the next few years, months, weeks, tomorrow, or even today, death will eventually come to you. Would you rather painfully live, or peacefully die?

I’m not saying that if you suffer from a terminal illness, you would never heal, but let me tell you something. The survival rate for patients who suffer from mesothelioma is less than 9%, while the survival rate for patients who suffer from pancreatic cancer is less than 7%.

So if you think that you can keep your loved ones alive by making them go through a living hell… then I don’t know what to say.

Putting aside the humane aspect, technology is now responsible for keeping some people alive. Why are we keeping these people alive if they are not going to improve? Why are we spending at least 4,000 dollars per day to treat a soulless life in the ICU?

So I would like all of you to consider this:

Don’t you think it’s cruel how we choose to watch someone die slowly and painfully, instead of giving them what they are begging for; death with dignity?

We make such a great deal about our right to live… but what about our right to die?

So now, if you were told that you had only a few months left to live, where your daily routine consists of waking up, waiting for death, and drifting off; being a prisoner of your own body and soul…

Wouldn’t you want a choice?