Once again they are talking about assisted suicide, how close they are to approving it in Quebec, and that the Federal Liberal Party, the likely heir apparent of the Harper Conservatives in 2015 with popular backing have endorsed it. Also I've heard news from Belgium that almost anyone can be euthanized now if they are sufficiently fed up with life. I really wonder how carefully the many who approve of assisted suicide have thought out the issues and the consequences. Speaking from my own background in death and dying, in administering palliative care I understand very well how easy it is to slip into the suicide and euthanasia trap when someone is either dying, or so hopelessly ill and in a steadily deteriorating state that to be imprisoned in a body wracked with pain and no longer functioning otherwise is utterly unthinkable. I remember how close I came to overdosing a patient on a morphine compound because he was in such agony, and how bravely I had to fight from doing the deed. I knew then as I know now that death, even facilitating death, is not my job, it is not anyone's job, that this is only the work of God and no one has the right to play God by even passively participating in ending a life prematurely.
The Slippery Slope argument still holds true. We are about to enter into one of the grayest epochs of our history as more and more Baby Boomers now are entering into their so-called Golden Years, and the increasing pressure upon younger hard-working tax-payers could become absolutely intolerable. We are going to be a very expensive, even unaffordable liability as the labour pool shrinks and the populations in nursing homes and seniors' care and housing facilities explodes. They are going to want to get rid of us. Hello? Why do you think we are having this conversation now? Already the froggy's bathwater is being slowly and gradually warmed and pretty soon the bath will be boiling and the poor oblivious froggy is going to happily cook to death.
Okay, I'm being alarmist. But look at it. Yes, it is a very horrible, and hopefully unrealisable scenario, but not implausible and we have to be awake and alert to this risk and the possible consequences no matter how terrible. Even those who want to end their lives have to be encouraged to not give up hope. Suicide is never under any circumstance acceptable and when I was fighting my own demons of despair I had to wrestle with suicidal thoughts and inclinations. What we need is improved and enhanced palliative care. Even though everything is done to ease or eliminate the suffering of the dying more research and more work needs to be done to improve the quality of end of life care. Our future treatment of seniors and people with disabilities could well depend on this.
This might sound like a bit of a stretch, but hear me out please. I sometimes wonder why some people are so eager to beat God to the finish line when it comes to ending human life. Yes we hear the usual stale arguments about compassion and wanting to end someone else's suffering but really folks, if we were really that empathic and compassionate we would have ended homelessness and child poverty years ago. When we are faced with death and dying we are also being confronted by the complete lack of control we have over things. We are forced to imagine the possibility of God even though the atheism behind this atomic package of assisted suicide and euthanasia tells us that there is no God and it is our role to do what we think we can do better than a God most of us no longer believe in.
I have sat in on other people's deaths and journeys towards death more times than I am able to count and this is the impact it has had on me. It has convinced me beyond any shadow of doubt of the reality of God. This helpless, powerless facing of the reality and inevitability of death, completely outside of our control and timing has overwhelmed me and others with such a sense of reverential awe that I would only cheapen by trying to express it in words.
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