By John Coppard
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It was early summer 2009 and I was on my second “tour” in Kabul, Afghanistan, this time as NATO’s civilian spokesman. I was responsible for representing NATO to media from the Alliance’s 28 member nations - regional powers such as Iran, Russia and Pakistan, and other troop contributing nations to the International Security Assistance Force, as well as Afghanistan’s own emerging media. While my military counterpart handled military-specific issues, I was responsible for explaining the political and diplomatic aspects of NATO’s support to this brave and tragic country. With lukewarm support for the mission in many contributing nations, and a traumatised Afghan population bombarded by Taliban propaganda and wary of Western intentions, the stress of the job could be intense.
I felt up to the challenge.
http://www.timescolonist.com/health/Anti+suicide+laws+have+served+well/5731465/story.html
By John Coppard, Times Colonist, November 18, 2011
The editorial "Time to talk on right to die" asserts the time is now right to discuss this critically important topic (Nov. 16).
I submit that the time passed a little over a year ago, when parliamentarians overwhelmingly rejected private member's bill C-384 seeking to legalize physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia by a vote of 228 to 59.
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| John Coppard |
Representatives of all parties recognized the dire risks to public safety of giving physicians the legal right to take their patients' lives, and our health-care system, and even friends and relatives, the legal right to steer ill people toward suicide. Our democratic representatives correctly saw this as open to abuse, and bad public policy.
The "Carter case" now ongoing in Vancouver is an attempt to end-run Parliament.
As a person who is "grievously and irremediably ill" with Grade IV brain cancer, I would be affected should this case succeed. Two and a half years after being given a 20 per cent chance of surviving five years, I am doing very well on a medication approved by Health Canada only a year ago, within a week of my cancer coming back.
Had I been given the legal choice of assisted suicide when I first received my terrible prognosis, or when my cancer returned, when I felt hopeless, I don't know what I would have done.
Now I'm doing very well, thanks to medical advancements that are coming faster than at any time in our history. Our anti-suicide laws protected me and gave me a chance for a long and happy life, just as they were intended to do.
John Coppard
Victoria
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Assisted+suicide+easily+abused/5525325/story.html
By John Coppard, Times ColonistOctober 9, 2011
Re: "Assisted dying should be an option," Oct. 4.
The danger in legalizing assisted suicide is that people's choices can so easily be undermined and abused. Whether it's greedy relatives hoping to speed up their inheritance, or cash-strapped bureaucrats looking to save on health-care costs, the weak and vulnerable can be all-tooeasily steered toward a death they do not truly want.
In Oregon, where physician-assisted suicide is legal and the government health plan is empowered to steer patients to suicide, two cases have gained public prominence - Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup. Both wanted treatment, but their plan offered them suicide instead. Canadian laws prohibiting assisted suicide exist for a reason. Let's keep it that way.
John Coppard Victoria
