The widow of a former Boston College professor who died of Parkinson’s disease has detailed watching her husband starve himself to hasten his death and why euthanasia should be legal.
Peter Kugel was 91 when he died Oct. 11 at his home in affluent Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife Judy, 53, and their two sons at his bedside, according to his obituary.
Judy advocates euthanasia in a Boston Globe opinion piece published Friday, noting that assisted suicide is legal in ten states and the District of Columbia, but not in Massachusetts.
She said her husband decided to stop taking medication and eating and drinking after suffering multiple health problems over a month.
Judy, who said the decision was “heartbreaking” for him and “stressful” for her, describes her husband’s agonizing final days before his death eight days later.
Judy and Peter Kugel pictured together in 2020 before he decided to stop taking medication and eating and drinking to hasten his death after battling Parkinson’s disease and other ailments
Judy, who served as her husband’s guardian, wrote an opinion piece for the Boston Globe supporting euthanasia, which is legal in ten states and the District of Columbia but not in Massachusetts, where the couple lives
The couple were married for 53 years before his death in October 2021 at the age of 91
“Peter begged me for his favorite lemon soda. I reminded him of his decision and didn’t give it to him because drinking only prolongs dying. Instead, I dabbed his lips with water, then left the room and cried,” she wrote of her husband’s second day without food.
Euthanasia, in which doctors use drugs to kill patients, is legal in seven countries – Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain – and several states in Australia.
Other jurisdictions, including several US states, allow assisted suicide – in which patients take the deadly drug themselves, typically in a drink prescribed by a doctor.
Seven states, including New York, are considering assisted suicide bills in the coming months.
Meanwhile, some of the 10 states that already allow medical assisted suicide (MAiD) are relaxing their rules, reducing wait times, letting nurses join doctors in prescribing deadly drugs, and allowing exit visits to end their lives.
Peter ran the Boston marathon several times and racked up “thousands of miles” on his bike during summer vacations, but in later years needed a walker.
After meeting with a neurologist, Judy discovered that her husband, a computer technology scholar, could no longer count backwards, type, or repeat words he was asked to memorize.
“It became apparent to both of us that his ability to function was declining,” she wrote.
Peter then began talking about ending his life on his own terms.
Peter Kugel celebrates his 90th birthday in March 2020. 18 months later he wants to take his own life
Peter was a member of the computer science department at Boston College for many years
Judy writes in her Globe article that the couple’s Ugandan housekeeper resigned when she learned of Peter’s decision to stop eating and drinking, citing her religious beliefs.
Just before making his decision, Peter “devoured” a “lunch of his favorite dishes, including bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon and sinful pastries.”
Judy said it made her wonder if her husband was ready to die. As he made the decision, Judy described it as “the worst eight days of my life.”
On the first day, as the couple lay in bed together, Peter told his wife that she had been “amazing” and that he wished he had bought her more flowers.
The couple were helped by hospice care, which provided them with a hospital bed at home and supplied morphine and “other end-of-life care necessities”.
Her sons Jeremy and Seth also spent time with their father, reading to him and playing classical music until his death.
In the statement, Judy then advocates euthanasia, arguing that had her husband lived in Switzerland he would have had the help of the group Dignitas, which helps people end their lives on their own terms.
She compares her husband’s situation to Bucky, her family’s dog, who was put down when he fell ill.
“There is nothing short of cruel to prevent someone from having some control in their most difficult hours when life comes to an end,” writes Judy.
“It is nothing short of cruel to prevent someone from having some control in their most difficult hours when life comes to an end,” Judy writes in her commentary
The Massachusetts legislature has consistently refused to vote on assisted suicide bills. As Judy notes, current Gov. Maura Healy appears willing to sign one as she walks through the statehouse.
The opinion piece ends with Peter’s essay, which he wrote a week before deciding to end his life.
He wrote about his once active life now hampered by Parkinson’s and a stroke. How he couldn’t travel alone because he had to give up his driver’s license and how he now needed help to go to the toilet.
“I’m not in pain, but being helpless hurts. I realize that dying may be uncomfortable, but it will not be as bad for me as it was for my mother’s parents who died in Auschwitz,” he wrote.
He wrote about his sadness at missing his son’s children and grandchildren.
Peter concluded, “I think I’m making the right choice, but if I haven’t, I don’t have to live with it.”
In the US, since Oregon’s MAiD law went into effect in 1997, nine other states and Washington DC have allowed terminally ill adults with a life expectancy of less than six months to ask doctors for lethal doses of medication, which they then take themselves, usually at home.
While US rules on assisted suicide are stricter than Canada’s and help some desperately ill people end their agony, critics say they also devalue human life and make death a solution for the infirm, the disabled, and even those who are cash-strapped or feel like a burden.
California has a population similar in size to Canada. In 2021, the latest year for which data are available, 772 Californians received scripts for deadly drugs and 486 died after taking them – mostly people over 60 with cancer, heart and brain disease, and Parkinson’s disease.
The first day after he decided to die, the couple lay in bed together and Peter told his wife that she had been “amazing” and that he wished he had bought her more flowers
Support for MAiD has risen steadily since the 1940s and has hovered around 70 percent since the 1990s, polling firm Gallup says
That same year, doctors in Oregon prescribed 383 fatal doses and killed 238 people.
Just about 27 percent of Oregon’s assisted deaths in 2021 involved people who said they were in too much pain, while more than half said they felt a burden on loved ones and 8 percent worried about money.
Some Americans receiving lethal doses do not appear to meet the requirements.
dr Jennifer Gaudiani, who treats eating disorders, stirred controversy last year by prescribing lethal doses to three patients with anorexia nervosa — a mental and physical condition in which sufferers often starve to death.
A 36-year-old woman died after taking the drugs. dr Gaudiani, who still practices, argued that anorexia, while not as serious as cancer, is brutally deadly for sufferers.
Even with these next-generation drugs, five MAiD patients in Oregon in 2021 vomited after taking pills, and one person passed out but later regained consciousness.
Most people died within 30 minutes, others took more than 100 hours to die.
A report in the British Medical Bulletin last year noted that it wasn’t always a “peaceful and painless Hollywood-style death,” citing the example of a Colorado cancer patient who took nine hours to recover after much “gagging.” and cough” to die.
Unlike in Canada, doctors are not always present when US patients take the lethal dose. Some families have been left in agonizing limbo as a loved one takes hours, maybe even days, to stop breathing.