VANCOUVER – Gloria Taylor says she’s now ready to die with dignity, but that day hasn’t come yet.
“My ALS has gotten worse since my last press conference,” said Gloria Taylor, a rather small figure sitting in her wheelchair with a blanket covering her knees.
“I can no longer drive, and I now have a feeding tube.”
She said her voice is also going, and she can’t cook anymore, something she always loved doing.
But it’s assistance with an everyday activity that’s hit her the hardest.
“The biggest loss of dignity to me is needing assistance to get off every toilet on my own,” she said.
Taylor is terminally ill with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, for which there is no known cure or effective treatment. On Friday, June 15, she won a landmark case to change the law on medically-assisted dying.
She wants to end her life with dignity, and now she can when she is ready.
Taylor is now hoping the government does not appeal the ruling, and is just “keeping the faith.”
“I would really like to think that the government would see they can’t do this to me,” she said. “They can’t do this to other Canadians. I would hope they let it go and not appeal it.”
“They can’t expect people to die horrible deaths.”
Taylor said she has not spoken to her doctor yet about obtaining his help to die, and is living each day as it comes.
Before she makes that decision however, she would like to see one more change made.
“I sure would like people to start saying ‘assisted dying’ not ‘assisted suicide’,” she said. “No one’s helping me to commit suicide, they’re helping me to die.”
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