Euthanasia Laws
The supreme court of Canada gave parliament until 2016-06 to come up with a new euthanasia law. Here are some of the principles I think should be embodied in the new legislation:
~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)
- It should be completely secular. It should not be influenced by religious thinking such as the existence of a soul, that god owns you, that there is an afterlife, that you will be tortured for eternity… Of course patients are free to take such considerations into their private deliberations but such superstitions should not be imposed on all Canadians. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.
- Clergy from a different religion should not be permitted to try to influence a patient’s decision. Terminally ill patients have low sales resistance.
- The patient, not the doctor, not the family, should be the final decider. Even if the patient has become demented, their written instructions should prevail. Only the patient can adequately judge his subjective experience and quality of life.
- It should be possible for the patient to change his mind at any time.
- When authorities are having difficulty deciding whether to give permission to die, they should simply delay deciding for yet another month.
- Terminal illness is just one possible criterion. I would give permission to die to someone trapped in a paralysed body unable to move, someone both deaf and blind, someone in pain or someone with Alzheimer’s.
- Assisted suicide should be available in all parts of Canada.
- Catholic hospitals receiving public funding must offer euthanasia, even if it means bringing in non-Catholic physicians to do it.
- There should be a simple binding checkbox form to express your wished. All you need are witnesses to make it binding. All you have to do is fill in a later dated new form to override previous ones. You should not need a lawyer unless you have unusual requests.
- It should be illegal for a physician to withhold how to get basic information about the new law.
- If all goes well, many young people seeking suicide for emotional trauma will apply. This is a wonderful opportunity to steer them to therapy. This is true for all people applying for trivial reasons.
- Currently, we are far kinder to our pets than our parents. We force parents to suffer far more than our pets by starving or thirsting to death with passive euthanasia. We must allow our parents to choose to avoid similar suffering.