We cannot all collectively agree on what defines life. A doctor will say a pulse, a priest a soul, a philosopher a thought. What we can all agree on though is that an unhappy life is a life not worth living. After all, what point is there in living to be a hundred if it is a century of misery? We as a civilisation have been blessed with the ability to sustain life against previously insurmountable odds, but we have also been given the power to take it away. Our government, however; will not afford us this right. They will not give peace and relief to the thousands of Canadians debilitated by chronic pain or bedridden by crippling paralysis. They prefer to pour money into them until the day that Mother Nature chooses to end her cruel torture and gives them the peace that they crave. By legalising assisted-suicide we can humanly treat patients whose lives are no longer worth living.
There is no point in prolonging life if the time gained is spent fading away in a hospital bed. We have the machines necessary to replicate vital bodily functions. Life can be plugged into a wall. It is just a matter of when to pull the plug. Sue Rodriguez was diagnosed with the degenerative Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in 1991 and given at most five years to live. She was told that the disease would eventually leave her unable to move, talk, swallow, and breathe. Her mind, however; would remain intact as her body slowly froze around her. In the last stages of her illness she would be kept alive by a respirator and a feeding tube until the disease finally caused complete respiratory failure. For Sue, this terrible fait was too grisly to imagine. She did not want to die like this. She wanted to die with dignity and on her own terms. For her, it was not about the quantity of her life, but the quality of it. Our society and our medical system are too preoccupied with trying to preserve and sustain life that they are unaware of the fact that their efforts are in vain. Another terminally ill ALS patient like Sue would be so medicated and sedated throughout the last stages of his life that he would be oblivious to the efforts by society to give him another week, month, or year of life. No one would say that living is lying in a hospital bed, yet our government will go to the ends of the legal earth to make sure our heart is kept beating. Length of life only matters if the quality is there to justify it.
Our government's opposition to assisted-suicide is derived from their interpretation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In Section 7 the Charter states that “everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of the person”, but we cannot collectively agree on what defines life so the government's interpretation is invalid. Furthermore, two Supreme Court justices have ruled that the criminalisation of assisted-suicide is an infringement on Section 7 because it denies us our right to security of person by allowing us to endure undue pain and suffering. Since we have the right to life, regardless of what that may be, we must surely have the right to die. It is our life, and we have our best interests in mind. Given mental competence we should be able to make that decision.
One of the main reasons that the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the continued prohibition on assisted suicide was that it “did not violate any principle of fundamental justice”, that of which “reflects the fundamental values of society”. That may have been true in 1993 when the judgement was passed, but a survey conducted by The World Federation of Right to Die Societies in 2000 found that 73% of terminally ill cancer patients over 65 wanted the right to assisted-suicide. These are the people who would be affected the most by assisted-suicide's decriminalisation. They realise that they are going to die, and want only for it to be painless and peaceful. A dry, autumn leaf is going to fall from the tree anyway; does it matter if a gust of wind helps loosen it?
The government is also blind to the effect this prohibition has on the healthcare system and on society in general. The cost of keeping someone on life support amounts up to a staggering $60 000 a year, that is about $160 a day. Of course it is definitely worth it to keep someone alive who wants to live or has a chance of recovery, but to keep someone alive against their will with no hope of recuperation is a waste of much-needed medical services and taxpayers' dollars. By legalising assisted-suicide we could give those people their wish and aid the overloaded healthcare system. Plus by not allowing assisted-suicide we force those desperate to die to do it themselves which impacts society far worse. In the early 1980s acclaimed Quebec film director, Claude Jutra, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and he knew that this was not how he wanted to die (If pneumonia or other maladies brought on my improper personal care do not kill Alzheimer's patients most will become so absent-minded that they will forget to feed themselves and starve). Jutra did not want this, and vowed to end his life before the disease made him forget his promise to himself. When his attempt at getting assisted-suicide failed, he did the only other thing that he could do and threw himself off the Jean-Cartier Bridge. The impact of the sudden and shocking death of a well-known celebrity was traumatic to say the least on the people of Quebec. It is a shame because the pain his abrupt death caused society could have be prevented if he could have received an assisted-suicide like he had wished.
There is no reason in forcing people to live longer than they want to. We are guaranteed the right to life and we should be guaranteed the right to a dignified death. By continuing to prohibit assisted-suicide the government infringes on our constitutional rights and provokes unnecessary trauma which in turn hurts society more than it helps it.
