Hello readers. Following up on my previous post, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for reading my words and for taking actions to help senators and parliamentarians make the right decisions with respect to Canada’s doctor-assisted dying regime. Click here to read the full report.
I have drafted a thank you letter below that I hope will help you overcome inertia and get a letter out to the members of the AMAD committee who did their job, really listened to many different points of view being presented, and came to the controversial conclusion that, despite the reassurances of enthusiastic regulators and practitioners, the evidence simply did not support the inclusion of mental illness as a stand-alone reason to be eligible for doctor-assisted suicide. That must not have been easy for some of those members.
I need not remind you that we are up against an extremely empowered and well-funded organization that is pushing constantly to expand the limits of the law and to normalize practices that many of us would have preferred to prevent altogether. Brace yourselves for a mighty push-back effort through the courts as well as lobbying and pressure campaigns on politicians and senators — a thank you letter from you might help them stay strong!
But be prepared also for a flood of sympathetic media stories that tear at our heart-strings as people with mental illness are portrayed as hopeless cases. They may have found doctors who believe that’s the case. In my humble opinion, those doctors should examine their own motives and perhaps consider a different area of specialization. At the very least they should delete from their vocabularies the words, “I agree, you have suffered enough.”
For now, people with mental illness alone remain off limits to potential suicide assisters.
However, people with physical disabilities and chronic illnesses are still very much at risk of being abandoned by the systems that they depend upon to keep them safely and securely in the land of the living. Doctors (and nurse-practitioners) considering approving them for Track 2 suicide assistance need to ask themselves:
- What role does ableism play in this person’s despair/distress? Do I even understand what ableism is and how it operates in a disabled person’s life?
- Are they lonely and isolated?
- Are they grieving a recent loss or change of circumstances?
- Do they have — or have they ever had — loving family support? Or does their family share society’s ableist attitudes?
- Have they been failed medically, or denied pain medication (or other treatment) that is available but controlled?
- Have they been deprived of meaningful financial resources?
- Have they been refused housing, or assistance with making their housing accessible?
- Have their personal support hours been restricted according to rigid standards of reasonability?
- Have they been threatened with loss of personal freedom by a system that, past a certain limit, will only pay for institutional living?
- Have they been victimized physically or sexually in the recent or far distant past? If so, are you an expert in treating and counselling assault survivors? If not, are you seriously considering supporting a death wish rather than referral to a trauma-informed counselling service?
A yes answer to any of these questions raises a BIG red flag. A doctor or nurse practitioner will no doubt feel hopeless and overwhelmed by many of the problems disabled people face. They may say to themselves that it’s beyond their control, that they can’t fix a broken system and it wouldn’t be fair to make this person continue to live a life that is so hopeless. And they may feel justified in declaring the person “eligible” for an early death. And the law as it stands empowers them to do so, as long as they have a physical disability. And our legal system is reluctant, even loathe, to question a doctor’s professional judgement, either before or after the person is rendered dead.
So, after you’ve personalized and sent the AMAD Committee thank you letters, let’s start planning “next steps” in forcing the government to pay respectful attention to the UN recommendation to rethink and repeal Track 2 Medically Assisted Death for non-dying people with disabilities.
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Dear Senators Martin and Dalphond; and MP Polowski,
I am writing to extend my enormous thanks to you for listening carefully to all of the evidence presented during the most recent hearings about expanding the medically assisted dying system to people whose sole condition is a mental illness.
I am so grateful that you and almost all of the committee members were able to distinguish between enthusiastic declarations of readiness and the actual reality of mental illness, the systems we have built and (under-)funded, and the evidence of so many presenters who told you that those systems are not “ready” and that the realities of mental illness preclude those systems from ever being ready to end the lives of the people they are meant to be serving.
You will be facing lots of backlash from lobbyists, as well as extreme disappointment from people who thought their interests would be served by a permissive regime.
I hope that you and the members of the committee who took the time to listen and weigh all the evidence will be able to stay strong against the criticism and the guilt-laying that is heading your way.
Thank you once more for your patient listening, your careful consideration of the options, and your final decision to advise government to indefinitely delay implementation of a policy that would be sure to produce irreversible fatal results for people who deserve so much more support and help than they are currently receiving from the various provincial and territorial mental health systems.
Perhaps you and the committee members will be able to turn your attention now towards improvements in the systems that are currently failing folks who deserve better.
Sincerely,
[your name]
[your full address including postal code]
[phone numbers]**********************************************
You are welcome to STEAL THIS LETTER as it is, or you may copy and paste it and personalize it as you see fit. Please make sure that the two Chairs (and the alternate chair, Hon. Pierre Dalphond) receive it. And if you’re feeling ambitious, please copy it to each of the committee members that we know supported the recommendation against expansion. They are: Tamara Jansen (PC), Michael Cooper (PC), Todd Doherty (PC), Hon. Greg Fergus (L), Peter Fragiscatos (L), Annie Koutrakis (L), Andrew Lawton (PC), James Maloney (L), Peter Schiefke (L), Kristina Tesser-Derksen (L)
You may wish to write a separate and different letter to the dissenting minority of members who wanted to support expansion, but I will leave that up to you. They are: Luc Theriault on the House side; Senators Pamela Wallin, Rosemary Moodie, Kristopher Wells, and Flordeliz “Gigi” Osler (participating alternate)