Euthanasia Comes to Ecuador

“Just take me out,” he said, with no idea the amount of paperwork involved.

At eighty-six, in a moment of heavy reflection, my husband asked, “If I were really old…and I was suffering from something incurable…and in really bad pain, with no meds helping…and there was no cure…would you help me take myself out?”

I didn’t hesitate. “No.”

He looked astonished. “NO!? Really? If I was suffering in excruciating pain — after all these years and everything we’ve been to each other — you wouldn’t help me take myself out?”

“No. Here’s how that would go,” I said. “You would die and go to warm, pastel-colored place — and I would go to a cold Ecuadorean prison with bad food.”

That was six years ago.

As rumors are wont to do, one about assisted suicide has circulated among the expat community.

“There is a doctor who will provide you with the morphine, and you can do it at home…”

Naturally, there’s a ton of paperwork involved.

Now, there is a new legal development in Ecuador, a traditionally Catholic country.