What’s in a Name ? It’s Euthanasia or Assisted Suicide, Not “Medical Aid in Dying”

Gordon Friesen, Washington, DC

“That which is called a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”*

Thus runs the amazingly fertile thought of the single most quoted speaker of the English language. And within the context of Romeo’s love for Juliet we are happy to approve.

However the exact correspondence of words to their objects is crucial to coherent thought, and doubly crucial when those words are found in written texts of law.

When two words are assumed to refer to the same object, but actually point to different things, we have a problem. And when one key word is legally enshrined, and charged with marking the limits of stable policy –but is none-the-less in a state of dynamic flux– we have another.

Sadly, with “Assisted Suicide” and “Medical Aid in Dying” (and indeed with all of the terms surrounding the assisted death debate) we have both of these problems in spades.

We Demand a Complete Review of Canada's Euthanasia Law.

By Gordon Friesen, President, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC)  

EPC has an online petition, we have post-cards to be sent to members of Parliament and we have a traditional paper petition demanding a complete review of Canada's euthanasia law. Contact EPC at: info@epcc.ca to order post-cards or paper petitions.

In coming weeks and months, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and the Delta Hospice Society will be calling on government's to undertake a complete, and long-promised review of euthanasia (MAiD) in Canada.

It is our observation that events have unfolded in a completely unexpected and alarming fashion; that current policy has little to do with its originally stated intent; that such policy is in fact leading us on a horrific course that no one consciously chose (or very few) but which is now evolving under its own anti-human economic logic and impetus.

Even we, in the organized resistance to euthanasia, have been taken unawares, while our rhetoric has been roughly overtaken by the facts. To take one key example, it has always been a priority to champion fair treatment of the most vulnerable, in terms of access to needed care and services. For we all immediately understand that legal euthanasia threatens the safety of specific lives. What we did not understand is just how many lives that would be.