The Panorama documentary “I helped kill my daughter “ follows the trial of Kay Gilderdale, a mother who is accused of “attempted murder” having assisted her sick daughter, Lynn Gilderdale, to die.
Lynn Gilderdale had been ill with a severe form of ME for 17 years. Lynn was diagnosed at the age of 14 and had been paralysed from the waist down, fed through a tube and barely able to speak since the age of 15. Having been in hospital over 50 times during her painful illness and suffered from a number of auxiliary illnesses such as osteoporosis, broken bones, liver dysfunction and hyper dysfunction.
In 2008, at the age of 31, Lynn ended her life by taking a morphine overdose with the assistance of her mother. There was no evidence presented
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Kay had cared for and watched her daughter suffer every day for 17 years from a disease for which “no-one had an answer, no magic cure”. Both mother and daughter had hoped that one day Lynn would recover but as time went on and Lynn suffered from auxiliary illnesses it became clear that this would not happen. Kay saw how unhappy and frustrated her daughter was with her quality of life. In assisting in Lynn's death I believe Kay was respecting her daughter's wishes and decision to end her life. What she did for her daughter was out of love; to end her …show more content…
However, Kay speaks of her shock of when her daughter asked for her assistance on the night of her death and how she tried to dissuade her
To assist your child to die would surely be the hardest decision any parent would have to make. You would be torn - it goes against your natural instincts to protect your child and not let any harm come to them yet you would want to do whatever you could to stop their pain and suffering; heartbroken at the thought of losing your child; helpless and fearful in that your actions could actually cause your child pain in the process of dying and once you had made the decision to act there would be no going back. Yet ultimate love to let your child go.
If I was in Lynn Gilderdale's position I too would want to end my life. I would hate to be a prisoner in my own body with no quality of life. I would not want my loved ones to have to care and watch me suffer indefinitely. I would want to escape and free myself from that painful existence and release my family from the