MAID exposes curable social ills
Long ago, I saw someone jump from the 403 overpass on King Street. I was on the bus. Before he went over, our eyes locked, just for an instant, I was that close. It’s a sight that has haunted me ever since. I saw the blood stain on the pavement when I walked home from work that day.
Of course there was nothing in the paper, no one talks suicide, so I called the police for information. I was told he suffered with demons for years. His people believed he was at peace now. I felt relief. I was carrying his pain with me. I still do on some level.
Recently, I attended an information session on MAID, medical assistance in dying, hosted by a local Catholic church. As a Catholic, I usually feel comfortable in the church, but I didn’t this time as I listened to the speaker declare all life sacred and in the hands of God, from conception to death. Needless to say, there was not a lot of support for MAID, but fear about extending MAID to people suffering from mental illness and a call for families to get involved in fighting the legislation. Being an outnumbered unfriendly, I kept my mouth shut.
I wonder now if my “friend” might have had a better death if he had been able to access MAID. If his family, given his outcome of death anyway, would have supported him in his decision, no matter how much the decision might have dis- tressed them, if they could have had the chance to say goodbye and his death could have been a private and peaceful one, instead of such a public, violent act.
No one wants a family member to die. No matter how terrible life is for them, we want them to hold on, at least for one more day, and then another and another. But no one knows what it’s like to suffer the pains of another. Many of us have had episodes in life where ending it seems preferable to going on, but we keep going, we had hope. This is not that. Some just want it all to stop; finding no answers in the medical community only leads to a future of hopelessness. No one has an answer for them. We often say mental health is just as important as physical health, it’s just unseen. And we can accept MAID for terminal illnesses, then why not for untreatable mental illness?
While I support MAID, two stories appeared last week that have given me pause to ask if we can’t do better.
The first reported that a third of Canadians support poverty as a valid reason for MAID. That blows my mind. Unlike physical and mental health, there is a cure for being poor. We could lift people out of poverty with a stroke of the proverbial pen. It could start with the provincial government increasing OW and ODSP payments to realistic, non-punishment levels. It would be improved with passing livable wage legislation and rent controls. Even better would be the provision of deeply affordable housing. Easy, peasy, really. But a third of us would rather people kill themselves. Who are we?
The second introduced a MAID population I hadn’t considered: prison inmates. Inmates who fear they will die alone in jail seek MAID to die with their loved ones. We think we’re a humane country because we don’t have the death penalty. But we do. It’s just voluntary. While only a small number have availed themselves of MAID at present, given that the suicide rate in Canada’s prisons is appallingly high — over twice the national average according to the John Howard Society and the punitive and problematic nature of the carceral system — we can expect that number to increase.
MAID is exposing the bleeding wound of Canada’s many social injustices and it doesn’t look good. We can use it like a diagnostic. Then people don’t have to die.