Ageing, indebted Japan debates right to ‘die with dignity’
Japan has one of the world’s fastest ageing populations and has no laws regarding “living wills” or assisted suicide
Retired Japanese airline employee Tarou Tanzawa said he hadn’t thought much about his own death until his 84-year-old mother was diagnosed with malignant lymphoma and decided against costly and invasive life-prolonging treatment.
He watched his mother die peacefully at a nursing home where she received only palliative care after checking out of the hospital where she was diagnosed.
Soon after, Tanzawa made his own “living will”, stipulating he did not want life-prolonging treatment if he became terminally ill or was in a vegetative state.
“I felt it was too soon (for my mother to die) but I also thought ‘Ah, there is this way of dying’,” Tanzawa, now 68, told Reuters. “My generation of baby-boomers ... are reaching old age, and we must confront death as a practical issue.”
Although Japan has one of the world’s fastest ageing populations, the country has no laws regarding “living wills”, let alone assisted suicide, which is legal in a few US states such as California and some nations including Canada and Belgium.