In Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller’s famous play, Willy Loman is mired in depression and financial insolvency. He deliberately wrecks his car and kills himself in the hopes that his life insurance policy will help his family.
The Willy Lomans of today may have an easier route in Canada.
Struggling with housing or inflation? Waiting in pain for a hip replacement in “the world’s greatest health-care system”?
If you can’t live with dignity in Canada, take comfort that you can die with ostensible dignity.
In our endeavour to maximize individual liberty, euthanasia has become an inalienable Canadian right.
But if you can only access health-care waitlists, as opposed to actual health care, and you cannot get financial or housing supports, is ending your life truly an independent and autonomous decision?
Fewer than 30% of Canadians have access to palliative care, a field I left in 2017 when Canadian governments refused to protect physician conscience rights when their patients seek to end their own lives.
My concern has always been that in striving to give Canadians what we now call a rational death, how many of our poor and downtrodden will we harm?
The Parliamentary Budget Office projected $87 million in health-care savings due to euthanasia in 2021, a figure that will only go up as access to it is increased.
Is this our unspoken solution to the problem of an aging population promised “free” and unlimited health care?
There was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation about a planet where committing ritual suicide was mandated at age 65.
Perhaps this is not our ultimate societal destination, but when euthanasia became legal in Canada in 2016 with Bill C-14, we were sold a false bill of goods.
While the Supreme Court of Canada “found no compelling evidence” this could result in a slippery slope, Bill C-7 in 2021 expanded the eligibility criteria such that death no longer needs to be “reasonably foreseeable” for euthanasia to be legal.
In March 2023, there will be a fundamental change in the relationship between patients and the medical profession — mental illness alone will be enough to qualify for euthanasia.
Years ago, when I cared for suicidal patients in the emergency room, I wondered if the time would come when I would be obliged to, in some way, assist in completion of the act.
The lack of access to prompt mental health care is particularly deplorable in Ontario.
The waiting lists are long. Treatment is expensive and takes time.
But since we live in an “on-demand” era, those who are struggling with mental health will now have legal access to a quicker solution.
A colleague who works in the field of mental health tells me that many patients are enquiring about the issue.
Euthanasia activists and the media have been incredibly successful in glorifying euthanasia. Something that was until recently criminal has suddenly become accepted as a default moral position.
One advocate says, “If you can’t practise medicine because you can’t do an effective (euthanasia) referral, then you shouldn’t be in medicine.”
Another believes it’s a doctor’s duty to do whatever is legal and that the practitioner’s independent thoughts about what is best for the patient have no place in health care.
Can you think of any societies in our recent history where this sort of thinking went awry?
Euthanasia activism in Canada ticks off many so-called “progressive” sacred cows such as claiming the moral high ground, control of the language (Medical Assistance in Dying or MAiD is the doublespeak now used to sanitize the act of voluntary suicide), and the pursuit of endless rights without thinking about responsibilities.
My preference would be to put the genie back into the bottle.
But practically speaking, we need to have an adult conversation of the pros and cons of euthanasia and where to draw the line.
There needs to be more debate and less shaming and censorship of those who disagree with the current orthodoxy on euthanasia.
Otherwise, in our utilitarian and utopian zeal, the right to die today may become the duty to die tomorrow. And everyone will echo Willy Loman’s misguided belief that some people are “worth more dead than alive.”
— Mark D’Souza is a Toronto physician
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