Easing euthanasia restrictions will erode safeguards
By Letter to the Editor on March 4, 2020.
Re: “Assisted dying bill gets mixed reviews, raises fears of more restrictions,” Feb. 26.
The “experts,” Jocelyn Downie, James S. Palmer, Chair in Public Policy and Law at Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, and Stephanie Green of Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers, clearly cannot be happy with the number so far of 13,000 physically sick, vulnerable men and women who have been killed by euthanasia in Canada in just four short years.
Jocelyn is “floored” that the recently tabled Bill C7 does not allow for mentally ill people to be killed, as well. It’s “discriminatory, it’s stigmatizing,” she whines. She can relax, because as she most likely knows and as she is working diligently for, euthanasia for mentally ill persons will be made legal in Canada soon. In a few months, a Parliamentary committee will be looking at the possibility of euthanizing mentally ill persons, adolescents and children, and adults who cannot consent, but have made an advance request to be euthanized.
Joc and Steph et al have a false understanding of autonomy, as did all the Supreme Court judges who legalized the state-sanctioned killing of vulnerable people in the first place. This false understanding of autonomy, among other things, “contradicts the communal dimension of human existence, and leads to the erosion of all restrictions and “safeguards” regarding assisted suicide and euthanasia,” as is evidenced by Bill C-7.
There is a profound darkness behind the likes of those involved in the euthanasia mutiny. What do they get out of their hell-bent advocacy for the killing of weak and despondent people? One is reminded of the words in “Les Miserables,” by Victor Hugo: “The cruel of heart have their own black happiness.”
#reversetheMAIDlaw
Maureen Remus
Coaldale
10-9
A compassionate society seeks to mitigate suffering. An objective society respects an individual’s right to die.
Other than that, the author’s letter is filled with underhanded and even false appeals to emotion.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6019623/canada-election-assisted-dying-law/
No doubt Remus believes that those embracing MAID, including this writer, are really en route to “hell” because of their compassion, yes compassion, to end suffering. (“hell-bent advocacy”.)
Her mantra no doubt rests on the assumption that only a god can end life through “natural death”.That people requesting MAID in most circumstances would be dead considerably earlier were it not for medical science, seems not to be understood by those persons. Her acceptance of maintaining life , no matter the drugs, tubes, electronic life support systems, no “happy” ending and the patients actual request to end their lives, is trumped by her “faith” and moral supremacy.
Hidden behind her concern over the recent MAID legislation, is a desire to role back the clock and declare MAID once again illegal – period. To those requesting and thus being denied is the real “darkness” in this subject if her wish is ever granted.
Her suggestion that those involved in any aspect of MAID are “cruel” and endure “black happiness” is misleading and completely incorrect. Quite the opposite!
I am sure that Sue Rodriguez and others would have a something to say were she to have met Ms Remus. Her (Remus’s) misguided ministry would be sure to come up.
Exactly John. Well said.
Well said JPN.
My disgust with the letter prevented me from exposing the irony, hypocrisy, and self righteousness as thoroughly as you did.
Thank you.
seth, jpn – well stated, thank you. amazing there remain some so thick, dark and controlling, that will twist and contort the facts and the humane basis upon which assisted dying rests. moreover, we again need to state that we are the sole arbiters of our bodies: what we choose to do with ourselves and with another is no one’s business other than those consenting. maureen, do not be afraid of the light – crawl out of the dark and embrace universe.
niyi below also overstates and contorts the right to die. no person will be forced to die if they are not willing and ready to do so.
In the court of plain human reason, the case against MAID is, at least, just as legitimate as the case for it – even going by a simplistic logic of autonomy. As the writer notes, there is nothing like absolute autonomy of the individual. Every individual decision affects and shapes the rest of society and vice versa (sooner or later, directly or indirectly). The very notion that an individual needs assistance ‘to die’ undercuts claims of absolute individual autonomy. I was struck recently by just how quickly the implications of MAID have begun rippling through society. A healthy and active senior said with palpable sadness that she was already beginning to feel unwanted and very vulnerable by MAID in a society where seniors are already made to feel like an economic burden. Soon seniors will be made to appear selfish if they failed to ‘choose’ MAID. The future of this looks dark indeed.
Considering that MAID has from the very beginning, stipulated that it is up to the INDIVIDUAL to decide upon their chosen exit be it staying alive, supported by multiple drugs , loss of personal bodily functions, dependent on machines as I stated above OR the option of ending one’s life, no Niyi, the fact that it is still up to the individual to choose , reinforces the desire for “absolute autonomy”*.
Your “logic” is faulty as is your dire warning.
* “to decide for oneself, and pursue a course of action in one’s life”.