Imagine you are in terrible pain and you are dying.

At the end of your street is a facility, A Final Farewell, that offers you the option of a good death. You’ll need confirmation from your doctor that you are really dying and a second doctor will interview you to be sure you know what you are doing and no evil son-in-law is coercing you. You can change your mind at any time.

On the special day, you head down to A Final Farewell with your wife and family and they have a beautiful room prepared for you. You hang out for a while with some close friends and say goodbye. You enjoy an entrecôte steak with your family and a lovely glass of Fuller’s Vintage Ale and then it’s time.

A Final Farewell has prepared a bench for you under an old oak tree surrounded by daffodils and primroses and the sun is shining. Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie is playing softly. You have one final hug with your wife and she whispers, “I love you so much. Safe travels.”

You drink the glass of medication that has been prepared for you and your life on this earth is over.

There’s no obligation to choose the good death. Palliative care is like a miracle for many people — though it doesn’t work for everyone.

Sometimes the patient will prefer to bear the unbearable pain. Other patients go into a coma that lasts for weeks and months while their family cleans them and turns them to prevent bed sores.

Palliative care is also an option but the bill to be debated in Parliament tomorrow will offer the choice of a good death too.

I will choose palliative care for myself but I will be grateful for the choice of a good death if palliative care is not working for me.

These are not the only options of course. If you are in a coma, you can already leave instructions for your nursing team to starve you to death. Dying of thirst is another option.

If the pain is unbearable despite palliative care, your doctor can increase your morphine until it kills you. That happens less often these days since Dr Shipman got carried away and killed over a dozen people without asking them first.

Dignitas in Switzerland offers the opportunity for a good death but if your wife accompanies you she will be investigated for assisted suicide. Prosecutions are rare but your wife will be investigated by the police and probate will be held up until she is cleared. You must go to Dignitas on your own.

Suicide is another option. You can connect a pipe to the exhaust of your car. You will die alone.

There will be restrictions on who can choose a good death under the new law. It will only be available to those who are already dying. It will not be available to the disabled, neither will it be available to people with depression or other mental illnesses such as dementia.

The courts in Canada have demonstrated the perils of a slippery slope and have changed their Medical Assistance in Death law several times to widen the scope of their law but the constitution in England and Wales does not allow this. The assisted dying law in Oregon has not changed in twenty-five years.

There are several options open to you if you are dying in pain but the new Assisted Dying Bill offers one more.

Would you choose a good death?

Credit to Nigel Warburton for the idea for this post.