In a unanimous ruling, Canada’s supreme court recently struck down the country’s law that bans doctor-assisted suicide. The court said the law denies people the right “to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care” and leaves them “to endure intolerable suffering”. The ruling includes several provisions:
* Patients must be competent adults who clearly consent to terminating their lives.
* They must be suffering from “a grievous and irremediable medical condition … that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable.”
* Physicians cannot be compelled to assist those who want to die.
In its analysis, the court called the prohibition on assisted suicide overly broad. The existing ban had not been meant “to preserve life whatever the circumstances, but to protect vulnerable people from being induced to commit suicide at a time of weakness”. In fact, it has the effect of forcing some individuals to take their own lives prematurely, for fear that they would be incapable of doing so when they reached the point where suffering was intolerable. The decision is silent, for example, on whether depression or mental illness counts as a medical condition, nor does it include psychological pain under the criteria of “enduring and intolerable suffering.” The court suspended its ruling from taking effect for 12 months, to give the government time to amend the law.
My own mother suffered a miserable and heart-rending death. A terrible accident in her youth came back to assault her in old age, depriving her of memory, judgment and peace of mind. She was violent and no old person’s home would take her. We did our best, but my sister and I have lived with a feeling of guilt that we were unable to do anything to end it all for her. The option of quietly and mercifully letting her go eventually became possible, but any pro-active measure towards this end was, of course, illegal. Now we can only really remember our mother, not as the beautiful photographic model she once was, but in her suffering old age.
If a pleasant way of life is a basic tenet of Epicureanism, then it follows that doctor-assisted suicide should be legalized everywhere, with safeguards, of course.
I completely agree with you on this one. All of the objections to assisted suicide that have any merit, are ones based on the practicalities- which in the modern world, I have no doubt can be taken into consideration.
I’m sick and tired of the religious right saying, “We can’t have assisted suicide because of the sanctity of life.” Of course life is precious, but that includes its quality, not just its existence. I think if you deem your life to be not worth living anymore, you have a right to end it. Its called freedom and self-autonomy.
In the case of your mother, I very much sympathise with you, and I hope her end was not too unpleasant. But its understandable why you were not allowed to kill her, as that would have been you making the decision, not her. Please correct me if I’m wrong about that.
Owen, good gracious, I would never have “killed” her!. Please give me credit. We hoped she might go naturally, and she eventually did. But the toll it took on her and her family amounted to mental torture. The worry and stress were overwhelming; there was no one to help or advise, absolutely no one. Someone you love no longer knows who you are, becomes wild, unpredictable and violent: if you have any imagination at all, imagine that going on for years. Agh! The Christian Right moralizes – let it happen to them and see how serenely they can take it! (I sound angry and I was back then. Not now.)
I’m very sorry I even entertained the thought and you have every right to be angry. It sounds like a tragedy what you went through, and yet another example of why the law needs to change.
Please don’t worry. I know you didn’t mean it literally. Thank you for being concerned.
Very encouraging, humane ruling, I agree. Your mother’s situation was the worst and particularly cruel–when the mind predeceases the body.