When citizens can request to die in the morning and be gone by supper, surely that is a step too far? |
We live in an immediate gratification culture.
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Buy now and pay later, a night out over a good night’s sleep, high-calorie, MSG-loaded junk food over the healthier option, same-day expedited delivery.
But when citizens can request to die in the morning and be gone by supper, surely that is a step too far? The state has then made ending a life a service, available on demand.
Fanciful, some might say, but Canada is already there.
Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying Death Review Committee reported in their latest data that in 2023, 65 people had their lives ended on the same day they requested it. A further 154 died the next day.
It is easy to see these as just numbers, but they are human lives being foreshortened by bureaucracy.
Among them was “Mrs B”, a woman in her eighties. After surgery complications, she sought palliative care and desired to live, but hospice palliative care was denied, prompting her husband to renew her request for assisted death. Two practitioners approved it, despite one explicitly warning of........