Harper Refuses to re-open euthanasia debate
As Canada deals with the reality of an aging population the issues of palliative care and quality of life are becoming increasingly important. In line with this vein of thought is the issue of assisted suicide; Canadians are increasingly engaging with this topic both privately and publicly, as various statistics show that 80 per cent of Canadians support assisted dying and hope for legislation to govern the practice. Yet Prime Minister Stephen Harper publicly stated that Parliament will not revisit the issue. This raises even more difficult questions, as one is forced to ask, why do we have politicians if not to debate serious issues that are important to the people?
What is particularly concerning about Harper’s decision not to open the floor to a debate on assisted suicide is that later this month, the Supreme Court of Canada will make a decision regarding a British Columbia Supreme Court decision which ruled the federal prohibition against doctor-assisted suicide as unconstitutional. The British Columbia Supreme Court granted Gloria Taylor, who was suffering from ALS, an exemption to the absolute ban on assisted suicide; she was not able to go through with this in Canada, and flew to Switzerland to have the procedure.
What Harper’s statement essentially does is delegate an extremely significant question of social and legal policy to the courts. I would argue that in dismissing this issue, refusing to even discuss it in the House of Commons, the Harper government is failing in its duties. It is clear that there has been public concern over assisted suicide, as Parliamentarians have tried to raise national consciousness about the issue nine times in the past 22 years. Currently, Quebec supports assisted suicide, arguing that it is a medical issue under provincial health jurisdiction, but they have not been able to move forward as the Federal Government argues that it is an issue that falls under the Criminal Code of Canada. In Canada, suicide is not a crime, but assisted suicide is.
By any standard, assisted suicide is an extremely complex and delicate question – a question that involves interpreting the Charter of Rights, and can only be decided, in any legislatively upholding way, by Parliament. Our politicians are also legally obligated to address this issue as case law confirms that government does not have the right to decline a charter case simply because it raises political issues. If anything, this should increase the sense of duty among our politicians.
To clarify what is meant by assisted suicide, this would not be the practice of physicians prescribing suicide to those they feel cannot be helped; this issue is about consenting adults agreeing to their own hastened death. Advocates for assisted suicide argue that people should be allowed to approach their own deaths rationally – no one wants to die if living is better. When one considers the quality of life some people can expect, sometimes dying is better than living in extreme pain with little-to-no control over one’s mental or physical faculties. Dr. Donald Low, the man who led Canada through the SARS crisis, recently posted a video advocating for Canadians to be given the choice to seek assisted suicide just eight days before he succumbed to his own terminal brain tumour. In his video he states, “Why make people suffer for no reason when there’s an alternative? […] I’m able to face death without the fear of death itself.” There are two kinds of death: physical death, and what sometimes pre-empts that physical death – the death of a life the individual still feels is worth living.
In the West, we have medicalized mortality, but we have stopped short of considering death as a better option to certain types of life. Individuals should be allowed to decide this for themselves. The idea is not for people to be coerced into death or to save on expensive treatments, the idea is to support those who wish to die with dignity in a peaceful, cathartic way that allows for discussion and understanding with family and loved ones. As Atul Gawande states in an interview about his book Being Mortal, which addresses ways to improve quality-of-life for terminally ill patients, “An ending always comes, and we need to honour people’s wishes during it as much as we can.” How can Canada even begin to come to a decision regarding this very real, divisive, and increasingly pressing issue if our Prime Minister is not even open to a discussion?