Dear Editor:
RE: ‘Wrongfully mistreated,’ July 20.
We are witnessing, in a neighbouring country, a concerted war of ideologies. Being laid waste in this conflict are the legal rights and privileges that many had enjoyed for decades. The plight of an innocent 10-year-old girl comes immediately to mind as a casualty of this social control masquerading as morality.
As an innocent child myself, I was confronted with elements of dogma, prior to the logical and reasoning aspects of my mind being fully developed. Regrettably, I now regard this as both unfair and unfortunate.
In that context, I have found it both wise and worthwhile to evolve away from childhood notions and reassess the thinking in the light of new experiences and emerging realities.
I will attempt to refute Pat Woode’s reasoning in being opposed to medical assistance in dying (MAID), point by point.
1) The use of the word ‘kill’ in this context is morally freighted and suggestive of criminality. The practice of an egregiously suffering Canadian accessing a cessation of this torment is a legal right.
2) The biased and cynical placement of quotation marks around the word safeguards, suggesting that there are none in place, is false. The fact is that the evolution of current MAID legislation has been sober, thoughtful, and incremental with plenty of limitations evident.
3) This point is entirely subjective, as it could reliably be argued that a physician could be fulfilling his or her healing role by offering compassionate release to an individual requesting it and fulfilling the legal criteria.
4) The notion of medical fallibility is an issue, but not unique to the practice of euthanasia. These potentialities have been addressed by the measured approach to the current legislation, to which I have already alluded.
5) Here, we encounter more subjectivity and bias via the claim that physicians are being pressured and this pressure is being transferred to the patient. Not a single doctor’s name or a specific instance of this practice has been cited! In the final analysis, though, choosing to end one’s life is a deeply personal decision, arrived at by rational thought and discussion with a suffering person’s loved ones and medical personnel.
I am not sure why any other Canadian, regardless of the morally righteous platform they profess to occupy, would be compelled to stick their nose into someone else’s business.
Allan Berry,
Fergus