August 9, 2005
Kamloops Daily News



It's my life.  If I want to end it, I don't need anyone's
approval.

That may be an obvious statement but it wasn't always that
way.   Up until 1972, it was illegal to commit suicide.

It seems odd that authorities would try to punish suicide. 
What would they do, arrest me?   I guess it's not that
bizarre from a historical perspective.  The Roman emperor
Tarquin crucified the bodies of those who committed suicide. 
The emperor could not stand that anyone would escape his
tyranny.

Pain is still considered a legitimate form of punishment in
some countries, as Canadian Maher Arar to found out in
Syria.

There are also theological reasons, says author Garret
Keizer.   Many religions teach that pain holds meaning in
life.   Christians are divided on the issue.

Some Christians believe that discomfort, disease, and pain
are part of the doomed human condition that we inherited
from Adam when he disobeyed God.  Mel Gibson's recent
popular movie, The Passion of The Christ, is a monument to
pain.

Others believe that a merciful God would not purposely let
his creatures suffer.  Jesus healed the lepers because he
didn't hold much worth in pain.

Some care givers and relatives worry that cancer patients
will loose touch when they loose pain though morphine.  Or
we fear that the patient is escaping our control?

Keiser puts it this way, "The suicidal, . . . the cancer
patient who smokes a joint, - - are all roundly condemned
for their escape from 'responsibility' but truly feared for
their escape from jurisdiction."

After decriminalization of suicide, the next logical step is
assisted suicide.  If someone is legally able to end their
own intolerable life, they reasonably expect that others can
help.

As Sue Rodriguez's body withered from a terminal illness,
she fought for the right to assign some else those rights. 
In 1991, she took her case to the Supreme Court of Canada. 
"Whose body is this?" said Rodriguez.

The Supreme Court dismissed the case and tossed the issue
back to parliament.  The Court has recently been accused of
making laws instead of parliament.   In this case, it is
parliament that has failed to make compassionate assisted
suicide laws.

Fourteen years later and the laws are unresolved.  Recently,
a 74-year-old woman from Duncan B.C. faced 14 years in
prison on two charges of helping two women commit suicide.

Logic languishes in this climate of legal ambiguity.   The
religious right has managed to connect the right to life of
the unborn to the right to escape a painful life through
suicide.  It's the so-called "sanctity of life" argument. 
It's a lazy logic that connects the two.  Life belongs to
whoever possesses it.

For me, it's more of an issue of property rights.  Life is
the most fundamental property a person owns.  I should be
able do with it as I please, and I should be able to assign
control of my life to someone else.  Control of my own life
and death does not confer authority over other lives.

Some Canadians worry that control of someone's life is a
dangerous thing; that it will lead to the deaths of the most
vulnerable at the hands of greedy relatives or by
governments who think that keeping the poor alive is too
expensive.

Laws can be crafted to prevent that.  Oregon is the only
North American jurisdiction with a law, enacted in 1997,
that specifically allows physician-assisted suicide.

Oregon's law is strict. The patient must have been declared
terminally ill by two physicians and must have requested
lethal drugs three times, including in writing.

As such, anyone who is incapable of giving spoken and
written consent is protected.  That protection could also
mean that those trapped in a world of pain where they can't
communicate will continue to suffer.  But such is the price
of caution.

Francine Lalonde, a Bloc Quebecois MP, is pushing to
reignite the national debate on the legal right to die.  She
has tabled a private member's bill that would amend the
Criminal Code and make it legal to help a person die. 

Lalonde believes most Canadians agree with legalizing
assisted suicide, and that parliamentarians have a "moral
obligation" to help respect the wishes of those suffering
with terminal illness. "The choice to die with dignity
should be a right," she said.

It's the next step in the escape from tyranny of pain.

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