My Life, My Choice

My life, my choice, writes Canadian journalist, Nov. 24, 2009.

A recent 60 Minutes segment gave viewers a distressing peek into how the American medical industry delivers care to patients in their final days. End-of-life care has become an enormous financial expense, and that has left some doctors frustrated. "Collectively, as a culture," one said, "we really have to acknowledge that we're mortal ... and start looking at what a healthy, morally robust way to die looks like."

Some legislators in Canada have begun doing just that. That has upset my friend and National Post colleague Barbara Kay, who has argued passionately against taking any moves toward legalizing euthanasia -- including on these pages ( "Make life the only choice," Nov. 4). She is not alone in her beliefs, as this paper recently urged against adopting any right-to-die legislation in an editorial.

I do not agree. We must ask ourselves if letting euthanasia become a political hot potato (any more so than it already is) will do anything to help those enduring agonizing final days.

This is not an abstract worry -- each of us will one day die, and while we can all hope that our passing is painless, it is just as possible that we will instead spend our final moments hooked into machines doing their best to keep us alive well past what nature had intended. Every individual has the right to define the value they place on their own existence. A person who desires to fight for every second of life should have that right. Another who decides that they do not wish to fight the inevitable should likewise be accommodated. How a citizen chooses to face the final phase of their life is not the business of the state, of any religious faith, or of the body politic of the nation at large.

Some would argue that a life belongs only to God, and while their faith deserves respect, it is up to each individual to decide whether or not such concepts matter to them. Others would prefer to ignore the issue of an individual's right to choose

entirely, and make the debate about something else: the controversial concept of doctors as killers, the threat of the elderly being coerced into choosing euthanasia by the relatives who would otherwise be responsible for their care and benefit financially from their estate, and the dreadful prospect of medical mix-ups resulting in the euthanizing of the unwilling.

These are serious issues, but euthanasia opponents must accept that no system enacted by man will ever be perfect, and just because euthanasia would be tricky to enact does not mean we shouldn't bother. The prospect of a doctor violating his Hippocratic oath can be removed from the equation by putting the administration of the fatal drugs into the hands of specialized technicians. Euthanasia can be limited to those who have explicitly requested it, in their wills or on an organ-donor-style card, leaving life as the default option for anyone who has not made their wishes abundantly clear. And the prospect of medical mix-ups does no more to discredit euthanasia than it does the entire health care system itself.

The process of establishing a workable euthanasia regime would be arduous and complex, and would involve many morally difficult questions. Granted. But these issues must seem very remote indeed to a person lingering in horrible pain while society hysterically debates the fine points of morality. I don't know what choice I'd make. But I demand the right to make it as a thinking individual, for my own reasons, and not as an unwitting pawn in yet another protracted battle in the culture war.

The church, the state, and the opinions of society as a whole are not welcome in my bedroom. I'm not much interested in having them with me in my death bed, either.

By Matt Gurney, National Post, Canada