Audrey plans to end her life
She says Ottawa is forcing an early death on her due to the criteria for medical assisted dying
HALIFAX — Audrey Parker has decided to end her life on Thursday.
She has approached it as a political act — an important public statement about Canada’s relatively new assisted dying law.
The 57-year-old Halifax woman says she is thankful the law will allow her to end the excruciating pain caused by cancerous tumours in her bones, but she says the legislation has left her in a terrible bind.
In recent weeks, the platinum-haired former ballroom dance instructor has spoken out — on social media, in newspapers, on TV — about how the two-year-old law is forcing her to choose to die sooner than she wants.
“You don’t want to die earlier than you have to,” she said in a recent interview in her Halifax apartment, where she has waged a very public campaign about a delicate subject that most would shy away from.
“There’s no reason I should have to die on Nov. 1 ... I want to live as many days as I can.”
The problem, Parker says, is that people seeking medical assistance in dying must meet a set of criteria that she says appear to make no sense.
Applicants must be in an advanced state of decline and experiencing unbearable physical or mental suffering caused by a grievous, irreversible medical condition, which means their natural death “has become reasonably foreseeable.”
Parker, diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer in early 2016, meets all of those conditions.
“All the tumours in my skeleton are killing me,” she says in a blunt, matter-of-fact tone that makes it clear she has accepted her fate. “My brain is constantly telling me: ’Cut those legs off. Cut those arms off ... Get away from that pain.’ It’s so heinous.”
She has been assessed and approved for a medically assisted death.
But there’s a catch.
Under the law, she must be mentally competent immediately before she gives consent for her assisted death.
If her painkillers or cancer render her unconscious or mentally incompetent before that crucial moment, the procedure must not be carried out. A medically assisted death under those circumstances would be illegal.
“It’s unfortunate that I have to pick a date ... but I’m not going to wait around and lose that window,” says Parker, whose varied career has also included working as a fundraiser, buyer in the fashion industry and as a makeup artist and television floor director.
“I don’t want to let my mother see me suffering. I don’t want my friends to see me suffering.”
Despite the heavy subject matter, Parker remains animated and upbeat while discussing her weighty predicament.
However, it’s clear she has been through an agonizing ordeal.
She mentions having to take large doses of the painkiller Dilaudid to manage her pain. Her hair was recently cut short to help her deal with a rising body temperature.
Still, she speaks with passion and cleareyed authority about her cause, refusing to give in to maudlin sentiments.
“I’m changing this law,” she says with a smile. “I’m so close to changing it.”
The existing law doesn’t permit the use of what are known as advance requests — written instructions for a medically assisted death that must be implemented whether or not the person is able to consent.
The law was written to ensure that vulnerable people who are unable to speak for themselves are not put in a position where someone else decides whether they live or die. When the law was being drafted, some outspoken advocates for people with disabilities made it clear that protections had to be put in place.
Other critics have suggested it could be difficult to determine a person’s level of suffering if they can no longer describe their pain. And there may be cases where a person with dementia or some other type of mental illness becomes mentally incompetent but isn’t suffering.
Parker said the change she is seeking should only apply to her category: mentally sound, adult applicants who have already made their life-ending wishes known at the conclusion of a rigorous assessment process.
“The (federal government) hasn’t set up (the law) to make it useful, and they’re lumping everyone together,” Parker said.
Ottawa should amend the law to give people like her the option of drafting an advance request that would remain in force for 12 months before being renewed, she said.
In June, Health Canada confirmed that a total of 3,714 Canadians had ended their lives with the help of doctor or nurse practitioner since medically assisted dying became legal — in Quebec in December 2015 and nationwide in July 2016.
Parker said she plans to gather with a small group of friends on Wednesday to say goodbye.