On February 6, the Supreme Court of Canada voted in favour of allowing people with grievous and irremediable medical conditions to request the assistance of medical professionals in ending their lives. This decision will take effect in just 1 year leaving provinces and territories scrambling to come up with legislation narrowing this broad scope to something that will still protect vulnerable citizens.
Assisted suicide has long been a controversial issue. The decision for a person dying of an incurable illness to take their life with the assistance of a physician has a profound effect on all involved parties. For the patient it saves them the pain of a degenerating body and disintegrating quality of life which in many diseases follows a predictable timeline. Although Palliative care can lessen the symptoms there remains many diseases which do not have cures. By choosing to end one’s life prior to reaching the extreme stages of the disease being suffered, patients aim to lessen the suffering of their loved ones. Physicians, on the other hand, spend much of their careers preserving life at all costs. Purposefully ending a life, even when it may prevent untold pain and suffering, can seriously affect physicians’ mental health and the medical community has not unanimously gotten on board with the idea of assisted suicide.
There is a great deal of grey area in allowing people with grievous and irremediable medical conditions to request the assistance of medical professionals in ending their lives. Ensuring that the patient is giving informed consent is perhaps one of the most important issues. A sick person may go through cycles of depression. When in a depressed state that person may ask for doctor assisted suicide while later realizing that their pain is bearable for a little more time with their family and friends. This second chance would be unrealized if suicide was allowed.
The group most benefitted by this Supreme Court ruling is people with degenerative conditions such as ALS, MS and Huntington’s disease. In many cases sufferers have a very defined way that their body will begin to decline. First you might lose speech, then mobility, then your very knowledge of self. For the dying person the pain of their terminal illness is increased by watching those around them suffer with the inevitable loss. However, we must question what constitutes a reasonable request. Is ‘being a burden to your family’ enough of a reason for suicide when faced with a degenerative disease?
The rules for doctor assisted death need to be more defined to ensure that an individual retains their ‘right to life’ without limiting them with a ‘duty for life’. In the cases of mental illness, physical trauma like paraplegia and cancers and many others the boundaries for when assisted suicide is acceptable are indistinct. While we can all agree that minimizing suffering in a person’s final days is important it is equally important to ensure that people are not taken advantage of.
This upcoming year will be incredibly important for the successful implementation of doctor assisted suicide. A great deal of debate and thought will have to be put into creating a law that will allow all people to die with dignity when their time has come.
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