TVO put out a video from The Agenda on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada. I have written about euthanasia before because I think about dying all the time now. I’m not sure it is healthy but ever since the accident my perspective on life changed dramatically. I am an avid supporter of MAID; and my cancer diagnosis have strengthened that resolve. I would like to think that if faced with prolonged, painful death I would have the courage to end my life prior to becoming a burden on my family.
The reason I am bringing up this video is because I felt TVO wasn’t completely honest, nor were some of the panel. The panel consisted of:
- James Downar, Clinical Research Chair in Palliative and End of Life Care, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa
- Rebecca Vachon, Program Director of Health at Cardus Canada
- K. Sonu Gaind, a psychiatrist and professor at University of Toronto
- Sandy Buchman, a palliative care doctor working out of North York General Hospital
Where I think the dishonesty lies is in failure to report that Cardus is a Christian think tank which proposes policy. This is the second bullet point in their About us, Our mission:
I thought that TVO should have said that Cardus is a “non-partisan, Christian think tank.” Their background matters, their stance matters because it influences their opinion of the topic. Christians have very definitive views of euthanasia.
The Roman Catholic Church (the Christians I am most familiar with) strictly opposes assisted dying, considering it a form of suicide and a mortal sin. Another way of putting it: they expect you to suffer through whatever horrible, painful situation you’re in because it’s what God wants, and if you don’t, you’re going to Hell. Although the Church previously taught that all suicides burn in Hell for all eternity, it has softened its stance a bit, now saying that people with severe mental health issues bear less responsibility and that maybe God will give them a pass.
Ms. Vachon was not the only person on the panel to express concerns about how MAID is operated in Canada. Dr. Gaind also expresses concerns which, if you are interested, you can find out more about here on his website. Obviously they are both very thoughtful and intelligent individuals and it would seem to me that MAID can never be a one size fits all. There will be times when someone may not be terminally ill and still want to end their life. They should get to make that decision.
I think for me, the issue lies solely as a matter of control. I firmly believe in body autonomy, that includes abortion, body modification and suicide. And I suppose what I find so objectionable about religions is they claim to be the authority on what you should and should not do with your body. What you should eat, how you should dress, who you should have sex with, and so on. Forcing one groups ideas on others, even under the guise of best interests is paternalism at best and totalitarianism at worst.
If you’re against abortion, don’t get one. Don’t like gay sex, don’t have it. If you don’t think you should eat mushrooms, pork, shellfish or anything else, then don’t eat it. If you are against assisted suicide, don’t get one. You have that autonomy, no one can force you. But just as no once can force you, you shouldn’t get to deny someone. Any objections to MAID from a religious standpoint need to be struck down immediately. And where the water gets murky is when a group uses a legitimate concern to justify their illegitimate objection, such as mental health.
I appreciate that mental illness makes us vulnerable to hopelessness and despair. We don’t want people ending their lives in periods of depression if they are likely to come out of it. However, unlike physical illness where the likelihood of recovery can be predicted, mental illness is not so clear cut. It would be cruel to force people to live with mental anguish on the possibility of improvement.
Again, I could just as easily argue that we should force someone who became quadriplegic due to an accident to hang on because we may come up with a stem cell treatment in the next 5 years, or maybe the next 10. Okay, possibly the next twenty, but no more than thirty. You get the idea.
If you argue that they should have to undergo treatment prior to getting access to MAID, that presents another issue. You can’t force treatment on people, at least not in Canada that I am aware of. Otherwise we could just sweep up everyone on Vancouver’s lower East Side and force them into detox and rehab. And people may, if denied access to MAID, choose to end their lives anyway. While the number of people accessing MAID has increased year over year, the number of suicides is declining. While correlation doesn’t indicate causation it would certainly be worth investigating.
Which leads me to other concerns. Poverty, unemployment, addiction, loneliness all have effects on our mental state. If someone is suffering from these conditions and wants to end their life, should they be allowed to? I would argue “yes”. Not because I think life is cheap, but because autonomy has to be paramount. Maybe there is a way where we could get doctors to prescribe social activities or prescribe employment. That way it forces the government to provide those necessities to at risk individuals. I have already written how a negative income tax and UBI can help alleviate poverty. The onus should be on society becomes to eliminate those as possible reasons for wanting to end one’s life.
That day returning we found a robin gyrating
In grass, wing-broken. I caught it to tame but David
Took and killed it, and said, “Could you teach it to fly?”
I often think back to the poem “David” by Earle Birney. Which I originally read in high-school. This poem had a profound effect on me and not just because we share a name. It effected me deeply because it reflected my own view on life. David chooses to kill a bird that can no longer fly rather than try and tame it. And later chooses die rather than suffer the pain of a rescue and life in a wheelchair.
If he doesn’t get to make that decision who should? You could easily argue that David isn’t in his right mind. The fall could have caused a concussion, and he’s confused. Or he’s just depressed because now he can’t hike and will need to spend the remainder of his days in a wheel chair. You could spin all sorts of reason why he shouldn’t get to make the decision in that moment. Many people have lead rich fulfilling lives in wheel chairs, etc… Does that make David’s decision wrong?
Ultimately, the question isn’t whether David’s decision is right or wrong—it’s whether it’s his to make. The poem haunts me because it crystallizes what I believe is the fundamental issue at stake in the MAID debate: the right to self-determination in our most vulnerable moments. We can build better safety nets, provide comprehensive mental health support, eliminate poverty, and create communities where fewer people reach that point of despair. We should do all of these things.
But at the end of the day, if we do all those things, and someone still chooses to end their life shouldn’t they get to? If we truly believe in human dignity and autonomy, we must also believe that individuals—not governments, not religious institutions, not even well-meaning family members—should have the final say over their own bodies and their own suffering. The robin in Birney’s poem couldn’t choose, but we can. And perhaps that ability to choose, even in our darkest moments, is what makes us most human. To take that choice away is to deny someone’s