Mainstream media: An Independent
Investigation about Crimes against Humanity!!!
The physically, mentally abuse, neglect and mistreatment of elderly
patients and people with disabilities in the care of government health centers
and nursing homes in Canada is appalling.
Workers from the government health services and nursing
homes are falling to treat vulnerable people in the way they deserve. The acts
of neglect and cruelty have been very common every day in the health facilities
against helpless people and some patients don’t want to live anymore. Assisted murders perpetrated by Criminal minds?
Medically
assisted death debate about more than civil rights: Walkom
It's not just about the right to die;
it is also about creating conditions that would allow more to keep living
People rally against Bill C-14 on medically assisted death
on Parliament Hill on Wednesday. "Rarely does the debate focus on measures
that might persuade the sufferers to keep on living," writes Thomas
Walkom. (Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
By Thomas WalkomNational Affairs Columnist
Fri., June 3, 2016
Much of the assisted-dying debate has
focused on whether enough people in pain will be able to end their lives. In
legal terms this is a good question. Why should some be denied their
constitutional right to death?
But in broader human terms it has
things backward. If government has any role in this life and death matter it is
not to ensure that as many as possible exercise their right to die. Rather it
is to create conditions that would allow as many as possible to keep on living.
The too-narrow critique was raised
again in the Senate Wednesday as members of the upper chamber questioned
Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Health Minister Jane Philpott.
Most questioners were particularly
irked by a clause in the bill that would limit voluntary euthanasia to those
near death.
Some senators asked why the right to be
killed should be denied to those who face intolerable suffering but are not
about to die.
Others asked why the bill would bar
people from deciding ahead of time that they should be killed later if they
found themselves with a debilitating condition such as dementia.
In the context of rights alone, these
are valid questions. But in the context of life and death — which is what Bill
C-14 is about — they are odd ones.
The right to death is not the same as
other rights. Unlike, say, the right to free speech, it is irrevocable.
Those exercising free speech rights can
reverse themselves later. Those exercising death rights cannot. Death is a
one-way ticket.
Canadian society recognizes this when
it comes to suicide. Suicide is seen as a tragedy. We devote medical resources
to psychiatrists and others in the hope that they can talk people out of
suicide. We involuntarily commit to hospital those deemed at risk of harming
themselves.
In Toronto, special fences exist along
the Bloor-Danforth viaduct to deter would-be suicides from hurling themselves
into the Don Valley.
In short, while suicide is legal in
Canada, society does everything it can to convince those weary of life from
taking this extreme measure.
Yet most of the debate around medically
assisted death is entirely different. Here, the questions most commonly raised
are whether the proposed legislation is broad enough: Should it include those
suffering pain who are not near death? Should we let minors take advantage of
the right to be voluntarily killed?
What about those fearful of getting
Alzheimer’s in the future? Should they be allowed to make advance directives to
be killed?
Rarely does the debate focus on
measures that might persuade the sufferers to keep on living. To their credit,
some senators did raise this issue Wednesday.
New Brunswick’s Paul McIntyre, a
Conservative, asked Philpott how serious the government is about providing
better palliative care to those near death. The health minister said the
government is “prepared to make significant investments” in the field.
Ontario’s Tobias Enverga, another
Conservative, asked a similar question: If Ottawa did pony up cash to make the
lives of those near death more bearable, how could it be sure the provinces
would spend it on palliative care?
Philpott answered that the debate over
C-14 has “opened up a conversation for us as Canadians about what we want a
good death to be like.”
Questions of the money devoted to
palliative and long-term care matter because, in the end, it will be the
elderly who end up availing themselves of medically assisted death.
Most will do so not because they suffer
from a relatively rare and high-profile condition, such as Lou Gehrig’s
disease, but simply because they are old.
In Belgium, according to government
statistics, 75 per cent of those who take advantage of voluntary euthanasia are
between the ages of 60 and 89.
It is no coincidence that Canada’s
debate over voluntary euthanasia comes as this country struggles over how to
pay for the costs associated with an aging population. We may decry death, but
it is the cheapest solution.
Some fret over whether some version of
Bill C-14 will be enacted before the Supreme Court’s arbitrary June 6 deadline.
I am not sure this matters much.
I am, however, puzzled that so much of
the debate — particularly on the left — has been framed around simple questions
of individual rights.
Yes, those in unbearable agony who want
to die should be able to enlist medical help. But, where possible, wouldn’t it
be better if Canadians collectively tried to alleviate that agony and provide
reasons to live?
Thomas Walkom's
column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. An
Independent Investigation about Crimes against Humanity
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