(Euthanasia Prevention Coalition) – In a new interview conducted by Lee Harding, published on November 14 by the Epoch Times, I joined Amy Hasbrouck from Toujour Vivant – Not Dead Yet, and Angelina Ireland from the Delta Hospice Society to discuss the direction of euthanasia (MAiD) in Canada.
Harding began by noting that the Québec euthanasia data released on October 20, showed that the number of MAiD deaths increased by 37% to 2426 (April 1, 2020 – March 31, 2021) representing 3.3% of all deaths. Harding asked why the numbers of euthanasia deaths is increasing so quickly.
Among other things, I told Harding how “in the discussion leading up to Bill C-7, all of the cultural taboos about killing people with disabilities or extending this (MAiD) to people with mental health issues and things like that, it was breaking down the negativity or the concept of maybe it’s not a good idea to do this to anyone for any reason.”
“The more we talk about it, the more it will happen. The more people will promote it, the more people will think it’s fine and the more people will die this way. … In a sense, death is becoming an industry. The fact is that all these things have moved our social mores.”
I then spoke about a call that I received from a woman who was upset her husband had asked to die by euthanasia.
“She’s calling me up all upset, saying, ‘My husband would have never supported this, never. What’s happening?’ And we had a long discussion. She found out that the one nurse in palliative care had spoken to him for two hours in the middle of the night, convincing him that it was the right thing to do.
They say this is all about freedom and choice and autonomy, and yet you’re getting calls like this.”
Harding also interviewed Angelina Ireland, the President of the Delta Hospice Society, an organization that lost government funding after it refused to participate in euthanasia. Ireland commented on the effect of euthanasia laws in the country:
“They can kill you at your home, the hospital, long-term care facility, hospice, and now the funeral home. But if one actually wants to live — that’s a lot more difficult.”
Continuing, she noted how, due to additional impact which came from “the firing of thousands of health-care workers across Canada, we cannot so easily access even routine surgeries and tests for our own well-being. Where are the priorities?”
Speaking to Amy Hasbrouck, a disability leader in Canada, Harding asked her about the 2019 Truchon decision, which legalized euthanasia for the disabled across Canada. Such a decision, Hasbrouck believes, did more to devalue people with disabling health conditions than empower them.
“The judge, basically, instead of saying, ‘You’re right. That’s the problem of our public policies and the way we treat disabled people. We need to do things differently,’ she said, ‘Oh, yes. You’re right. You should have the right to be killed by the state because, of course, you wouldn’t want to go into a nursing home,” said Hasbrouck.
“So the judge’s solution was, they would be better off dead,” Hasbrouck added.
Hasbrouck mentioned Jonathon Marchand, a Quebec City man with muscular dystrophy, who camped outside the Legislative assembly in a make-shift cage to protest his confinement to a nursing home, rather than being assisted to live independently with supports.
“Quebec resisted and dragged their feet,” Habrouck said. “And ultimately, they allowed Jonathan to create a program for himself, but they refused to extend the pilot project to other people. … [Yet] it costs less for somebody to live in the community than for the person that lives in an institution.”
“It became much more apparent during the COVID pandemic that society in general considered disabled people [and the elderly in nursing homes] as a disposable population. Those are trends that we have seen most recently that are very worrisome,” she added.
Hasbrouck decried the fact that people are not being offered choices to live, but they are being told that they have a choice to die. In other words, people are considered better off dead.
Reprinted with permission from Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
No comments:
Post a Comment