Dear Editor:
RE: ‘Support the weakest,’ Sept. 28.
I feel compelled to respond to a letter by Pat Woode, since my name was brought up. The mere mention by the author of being against MAID (medical assistance in dying)or compassionate euthanasia “for any reason” bespeaks the control and domination impulses of the protestors.
This rigid and unyielding, “my way or the highway” type of thinking has resulted in great social upheaval, as well as familial anguish in a neighbouring country. What sane and sentient Canadian would want these things replicated here?
Even as I write this, the anti-MAID group alluded to by Pat Woode is marshalling its forces via a private member’s bill designed to thwart the right of those suffering mental illness from accessing MAID, due to become law in March of 2024.
There is both a weariness and a consternation that one of the most basic tenets of civilized behaviour cannot be observed by the anti-MAID faction: please honour my wishes and I will honour yours; please respect my values and I will respond likewise.
People accessing MAID have an earnest and heartfelt desire to be free of their egregious suffering and to depart this life with a semblance of their personal, human dignity intact. Why can’t some people understand this?
Allan Berry,
Fergus