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Judging the Value of a
Life Part Two of Three By Dave Andrusko
The name of the powerful op-ed in the Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail is "Judging the value of a life." The subhead adds, "The fact is that most people, whatever their condition, don't want to die." Author Lysiane Gagnon wrote an arresting anti-euthanasia piece, which would have struck home with me under any circumstances. However there are three people whom I know who were supposedly imminently dying but whose sheer force of personality and incredible will to live has repeatedly staved off death. I am amazed yet again by the extraordinary capacity of ordinary people to prove the medical "experts" wrong, time and time again. I've always paid little heed to predictions about how long someone who is gravely ill will survive, but even less so now. Gagnon uses a poll from Quebec that's gotten a lot of attention as her point of departure. "According to a recent Léger Marketing survey, an extraordinarily high proportion of Quebeckers – 71 per cent – favour decriminalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide," she writes. Gagnon helps the reader understand how absurdly loaded the poll question is, intended to get the most support, rather than probe how people genuinely think. And she does an exquisite job showing how parts of the Medical Establishment are busying pushing death. She helps us Americans appreciate how cleverly Canadian proponents are using an effort in one state--Quebec--to forward the agenda at the federal level. We learn that the government has already set up a "consultative commission" that will hold hearings in 11 cities this fall. [www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/judging-the-value-of-a-life/article1688283.] But the most telling portion of her column is quoting from a now-deceased journalist for the Montreal Gazette. Hugh Anderson "wrote a seniors' column until his recent death from cancer, was adamantly against the idea of legalizing euthanasia, because he thought that none of the safeguards that could be part of a law would prevent abuse," Gagnon writes. "The slippery slope can be quite abrupt, indeed." She quotes Anderson who documented the Netherlands' pell-mell down-the-slippery-slope descent from "euthanasia" for supposedly terminally ill patients who were mentally competent all the way to the point it is now "legal for doctors in Holland to kill infants, if parents agree, if they believe their patients' suffering is intolerable or incurable." Gagnon muses hopefully, "Maybe Canada would follow a different path." But "what's beyond doubt is that legalizing assisted suicide would apply terrible pressures on severely disabled or terminally ill people who don't want to die even though their lives might seem worthless in the eyes of others," she adds. To her first point, no, I doubt seriously whether Canada's ultimate destination would be any different than Holland's. There is a dark and sinister logic that takes over, once there is that first breach in the wall protecting the medically vulnerable. As to Gagnon's second observation, it can not be stated strongly enough how much pressure legalizing assisted suicide places on those whose lives are deemed less "worthy." I have seen it in action, and it is an ugly, ugly picture. |
