Euphemasia

Euphemasia 

(Euphemising Euthanasia)

The theme of “euthanasia” came to me, in March 2021, when we unexpectedly had to euthanise our beloved family dog, Jackson. Shortly before he fell ill, Jacky still had a lot of life and vibrancy in him - we’d go on regular walks and he’d chase birds in the garden, which made his sudden departure a real shock to all who loved and knew him. We didn’t want to say goodbye, but because we loved him and couldn’t prolong his suffering, we knew we had no other choice than to euthanise him. This brought me to the question of why euthanasia is considered “mercy” only when the suffering of animals is at stake and not that of humans. Euthanasia for human patients is legal in only nine countries across the world and beyond those borders, a lot of controversy surrounds the topic.

Euthanasia generally receives limited attention, but some recent films, South African court cases and the harsh effect of the current pandemic are raising the topic more and more. The films, Me Before You (2016) and Breathe (2017) address the challenging journey that life-altered patients and their loved ones experience. The 2019 court case of Prof Sean Davison, a South African- New Zealand doctor, raised the question of whether it is justified that he, and doctors like him, should receive a sentence that falls into the same category as that of “gang-rape, airline hijacking, and rape where the rapist knew they were HIV positive”.

In my workbook and artworks, I explore this heavy topic by ‘euphemising’ it; I drew inspiration from the genre, children’s literature, that often disguises moral lessons and serious topics through the use of animal characters. Mimicking this technique, I represent life, death, and mortality through the stork, the raven and the wolf. The stork is associated with being a ‘bringer of life’, a euphemism for birth, and the raven symbolises the lurking of death, every day, around the corner. From the day we are born and every day since then we evade death, only until we meet it on our last. The wolf stereotypically represents the antagonist (the villain) in animal fables, but it also begs the question of whether it really is a villain - or a victim? Similarly, patients who suffer from a terminal illness and immense pain can also become ‘villains’ to their loved ones when they contemplate assisted suicide and express the loss of quality of life as being too much for them to bare…

Furthermore, the wolf also provides that canis lupus element that pays tribute to the memory of my canine friend. I’m sure fellow animal lovers know and understand how another creature can become a pivotal part of your family and how deeply their absence can be felt. Our animal friends remind us of our own mortality when they depart before we do, the compassion they show to us, their dependence on us, and the care we invest in them, remind us of how we are also in need of being cared for and need to give care to others.

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