Glad to be Alive

http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/letters/Glad+alive/5753865/story.html

By Alison Davis, Calgary Herald - November 23, 2011

Re: "No right to be killed; Doctor assisted suicide should not be allowed," Editorial, Nov. 20.

I was glad to see your excellent editorial stating the case against euthanasia. If [assisted suicide/euthanasia] had been available to me some years ago, I wouldn't now be writing to you. I have several severe disabling conditions. I use a wheelchair full time and a vent at night. I have severe pain, which even morphine can't control.

I wanted to die for more than 10 years, at a time when doctors thought my life expectancy was very short. I attempted suicide seriously several times, and was saved, only because friends found me in time and took me to the emergency room, where I was treated.

At first, I was angry with them for thwarting my wishes. Now, I'm eternally grateful. I want to live now, even though my pain is worse than it was when I wanted to die. What changed my mind is friends who refused to accept my view that my life had no value, and a group of very poor children, who loved me wonderfully and overwhelmingly. I found a reason to live in reaching out to help others, rather than turning the negativity on myself. If assisted suicide had been available then, no one would ever have known the doctors' prognosis was wrong, or that I'd be missing the best years of my life.

Alison Davis, Blandford Forum, U.K.

Doctor-assisted suicide is dangerous for us all

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Doctor+assisted+suicide+dangerous/5737414/story.html

By Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald

November 19, 2011 

It's been a sickly couple of weeks for life. This past Monday, a B.C. Supreme Court case kicked off in which five people are seeking the right to choose to be killed by a physician. The very next day, the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) released a report that urges the federal government to legalize assisted suicide in Canada. A summary of the End of Life Decision Making report states: "The evidence from years of experience and research where euthanasia and/or assisted suicide are permitted does not support claims that decriminalization will result in vulnerable persons being subjected to abuse or a slippery slope from voluntary to non-voluntary euthanasia."

Wow. The RSC panel members must be really lousy researchers. At the very least, someone should teach them how to use Google. Why? Because on Nov. 9, it was announced that a woman with advanced Alzheimer's disease was euthanized in the Netherlands in March. In Holland, this was not even big news.  The horror stories in the Netherlands, where euthanasia was legalized in April 2002, but where it was practised for years prior to that without censure, go way back and prove that there is not just a slippery slope, but a veritable vertical skating rink. Two comprehensive studies, headed up by the Attorney General of the High Council of the Netherlands - Prof. J. Remmelink - reveal utterly shocking examples of abuse, or rather, murder.The first of these reports was released in September 1991. It found that in 1990 alone:

Anti-Assisted Suicide Laws Have Served Him Well

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.

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

The Carter Case and Assisted Suicide: A Recipe for Elder Abuse and a Threat to Individual Rights

For shorter print versions of this article, click here and here.
For talking points, click here.

Will Johnston, MD

Margaret Dore, JD
Alex Schadenberg
November 1, 2011

"Those who believe that legal

assisted suicide . . . will assure their
autonomy and choice are naive."

William Reichel, MD

Montreal Gazette,

May 30, 2010[1]

A.  Introduction

Carter vs. Attorney General of Canada brings a constitutional challenge to Canada's laws prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia.[2]  Carter also seeks to legalize these practices as a medical treatment.[3]  Last year, a bill in Parliament seeking a similar result was overwhelmingly defeated.[4] 

This article's focus is physician-assisted suicide.

Legalizing this practice would be a recipe for elder abuse.  Legalization would also empower the Canadian health care system to the detriment of individual patient rights.  There would be other problems.

B.  Parliament Rejected Assisted Suicide

On April 21, 2010, Parliament defeated Bill C-384, which would have legalized physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada.[5]  The vote was 228 to 59.[6]C.  The Carter Case