Is assisted suicide a matter of freedom?
Re: Euthanasia Makes Us All Complicit, Andrew Coyne, April 19.
In his book, Other People’s Lives: Reflections on Medicine, Ethics and Euthanasia, Richard Fenigsen wrote that, “In Holland, the country much praised for its practice of voluntary euthanasia, the lives of 400 disabled newborns are terminated every year by denial of medical assistance, dehydration/ starvation and lethal injections. The reports of governmentordered studies revealed that lethal injections are given to 1,000 gravely ill persons who had never asked for death, but have a “low quality of life” or “no prospect of improvement;” some were killed “because the families could not take it anymore” or even because their beds were needed.
Thus, along with the voluntary euthanasia that is going on, we witness the extermination of persons who embarrass their families, are undesirable for society, or arbitrarily judged unfit by doctors.
In a society, the ones who are in most need of protection are infants, children, the aged, the weak, the infirm and the marginalized. We are slowly turning into a society that, under guise of constitutional guarantees of freedom, autonomy and self- determination, is riding the slippery slope of exterminating the very people who need our protection the most.
Cynthia Robles, Mississauga, Ont.
An important ingredient of human freedom is the capacity to kill one’s self when desired. People who cannot do this, whether out of fear or physical or mental incapacity, or be- cause the state prevents them, are not free. In cases of physical incapacity, the state can offer a doctor to assist people who choose to die without impairing anyone’s freedom, but it cannot make this service available to minors and the mentally incapacitated without risking killing people who do not truly wish to die. It is not the case that government is denying these people their freedom, but simply it is incapable of restoring a freedom that nature has already taken away. It is wrong to think that government can be perfect.
Patrick Cowan, Toronto.
Forty- three years ago, my best friend committed suicide. I was 15 and I never had any idea my friend was considering suicide. But to this day, I still wonder if I was in any way at fault, or if I could have stopped it.
The fact our country is now allowing doctors to help others commit suicide has me worried. I’ve been talking about it with my elderly friends and friends who suffer from mental illnesses, letting them know that I will be there for them if they are ever considering taking such a step. I will assist them and nurse them to the end, so that they never have to consider taking their own lives.
I already feel complicit in the deaths of those who have already taken advantage of the emerging new assisted-suicide regime in Canada. Every one of these deaths will weigh on my conscience because I just wish I could have helped them. How can anyone ever allow a person they know to take their own life?
Dianne Wood, Newmarket, Ont.