We all die. Those who oppose this measure, whether on principle or on emotions, seem stuck in a fantasy where death can only be something visited on us from outside, against our will, by accident or by some other unforeseen agency. Their motive might be kindly, but the result of their infantile refusal to see reality can be very cruel indeed when they foist their limited understandings on others.
As intelligent sentient beings we do our best to thoughtfully conduct and control every aspect of our lives, from the first breath we take after birth. Why shouldn't we do that right up the last breath we take? Our parents may have forced life upon us without asking, but only because that's how reproduction works. And we long ago determined we would control birth for ourselves. So why pretend death can't be?
There are issues, like competency, conscience and coercion to work out but we've managed them in all sorts of other aspects of life (in particular around birth control, abortion and such at the beginning) and there's no reason to imagine we can't do so at the end. But we need to be dead clear that just as at the beginning, so too at the end, an individual's reasons for their decision are their business alone, and no one else's.
Now in my eighth decade with ever-more minor medical support needed ever-more often, and declining success-rates at my age for any major interventions like surgery, what's wrong with me deciding I've had a full and happy life and picking my own precise end-date because it'll be tidy for the folks I leave behind and pleasant for me?
What makes my control over my death the concern of the CMA, the Archbishop of Toronto, and the Parliament of Canada that they should seek to hedge it with severe constraints — like setting a minimum threshold of intolerable pain, mandating waiting period and multiple approvals, while forbidding my free will in choosing it?
If death is the natural and ordinary end of every life, and if people are free to live as they choose, then let them die as they wish.
This debate should be in two stages, the first: Very simply, within the ordinary safeguards around coercion, competency, and informed consent everyone has the right to chose to die.
That established, the second part: What should the service our publicly-educated and publicly-paid medical establishment provides for that ultimate life-decision look like? To what extent is it permissible to withhold knowledge assistance and access to care from a patient for purely personal moral reasons? Or does the physician's professional duty of care require them to be put aside?
But first things first: Does an person have a right to die by choice?
As intelligent sentient beings we do our best to thoughtfully conduct and control every aspect of our lives, from the first breath we take after birth. Why shouldn't we do that right up the last breath we take? Our parents may have forced life upon us without asking, but only because that's how reproduction works. And we long ago determined we would control birth for ourselves. So why pretend death can't be?
There are issues, like competency, conscience and coercion to work out but we've managed them in all sorts of other aspects of life (in particular around birth control, abortion and such at the beginning) and there's no reason to imagine we can't do so at the end. But we need to be dead clear that just as at the beginning, so too at the end, an individual's reasons for their decision are their business alone, and no one else's.
Now in my eighth decade with ever-more minor medical support needed ever-more often, and declining success-rates at my age for any major interventions like surgery, what's wrong with me deciding I've had a full and happy life and picking my own precise end-date because it'll be tidy for the folks I leave behind and pleasant for me?
What makes my control over my death the concern of the CMA, the Archbishop of Toronto, and the Parliament of Canada that they should seek to hedge it with severe constraints — like setting a minimum threshold of intolerable pain, mandating waiting period and multiple approvals, while forbidding my free will in choosing it?
If death is the natural and ordinary end of every life, and if people are free to live as they choose, then let them die as they wish.
This debate should be in two stages, the first: Very simply, within the ordinary safeguards around coercion, competency, and informed consent everyone has the right to chose to die.
That established, the second part: What should the service our publicly-educated and publicly-paid medical establishment provides for that ultimate life-decision look like? To what extent is it permissible to withhold knowledge assistance and access to care from a patient for purely personal moral reasons? Or does the physician's professional duty of care require them to be put aside?
But first things first: Does an person have a right to die by choice?
