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Last October, Canadian news outlet CityNews produced a story about a man with chronic back pain due to a workplace injury seeking assisted suicide (euphemistically and disingenuously dubbed MAID — Medical Assistance in Dying — as if the dying had never before been given medical assistance in Canada). The man did not want to die, but he was about to lose his home, and he could not face the prospect of homelessness with his chronic back pain. The story had a happy ending. A good Samaritan set up a GoFundMe page, and strangers who saw the story donated enough that the man’s housing is assured for the foreseeable future, and his decision to end his life has been deferred.
Of course, not everyone in the same situation is so fortunate. The flip side of this story is the increasing number of people who have never asked for assisted suicide having it suggested to them as the solution to their problems. Somehow, in Canada, this behavior is simultaneously cause for police investigation when it happens in the department of veteran’s affairs, and promoted as best practice by the physicians’ group tasked with developing professional guidelines on the issue. No one knows, of course, just how often this happens in families.
In December, one company’s attempt to signal its progressive values in a clothing commercial highlighting one woman’s choice to access assisted suicide backfired when it became public that the “choice” being celebrated followed from years of falling through the cracks of the health care system. She also did not want to die. The role of assisted suicide in this story, as in the CityNews story, did not highlight the compassion and justice of Canadian society but our failures on these fronts. Not a great look for your product. At a more institutional level, we hear about how successful Canada has been at harvesting organs from those choosing assisted suicide, and about how much money assisted suicide is saving and will save our health care system.
Continued below.
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Of course, not everyone in the same situation is so fortunate. The flip side of this story is the increasing number of people who have never asked for assisted suicide having it suggested to them as the solution to their problems. Somehow, in Canada, this behavior is simultaneously cause for police investigation when it happens in the department of veteran’s affairs, and promoted as best practice by the physicians’ group tasked with developing professional guidelines on the issue. No one knows, of course, just how often this happens in families.
In December, one company’s attempt to signal its progressive values in a clothing commercial highlighting one woman’s choice to access assisted suicide backfired when it became public that the “choice” being celebrated followed from years of falling through the cracks of the health care system. She also did not want to die. The role of assisted suicide in this story, as in the CityNews story, did not highlight the compassion and justice of Canadian society but our failures on these fronts. Not a great look for your product. At a more institutional level, we hear about how successful Canada has been at harvesting organs from those choosing assisted suicide, and about how much money assisted suicide is saving and will save our health care system.
Continued below.
Assisted suicide slowly shifts from free 'choice' to compulsory
Writer Brett Salkeld examines the tragic push by the Canadian government to expand the country’s Medical Assistance in Dying program to allow children with terminal illnesses and adults with mental disabilities to “choose” to end their own lives. Salkeld writes that when such a choice is...
www.oursundayvisitor.com
