Today it’s hard to believe that the fight for the terminally ill to die with dignity in Canada went on for another 20 years after ALS sufferer Sue Rodriguez took her challenge to the Supreme Court, losing the case in 1993 in a 5-4 vote.
Lee Carter and Hollis Johnson of Roberts Creek were plaintiffs in the landmark Carter case, in which the Supreme Court overturned the Rodriguez ruling in a unanimous decision on Feb. 6, 2015. The court heard from several people who told their own harrowing stories – a woman who contemplated suicide by asphyxiation, drug overdose or freezing herself to death rather than suffer the final stages of cancer; a man with Huntington disease whose mother with the same inherited condition starved herself to death to end her torture; and a woman whose husband pleaded with her to shoot him to relieve him from the pain he was in due to ALS.
A bill to legalize and regulate assisted dying passed in Parliament on June 17, 2016, with strict rules governing access.
In the lead-up to the new law, fears were expressed that “the most vulnerable will lose their security of person,” as one 80-year-old Sechelt resident wrote in a letter to this paper at the time, adding that she felt her right to life had been downgraded.
These fears appear to have largely faded since the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) legislation passed, eclipsed by stories of brave souls who have chosen to end their lives on their own terms rather than face certain, agonizing death in the near future.
A major reason for this absence of public backlash is the strictness of the eligibility criteria. Patients must be mentally competent and have a “grievous and irremediable condition.” This means they must have a serious illness, disease or disability; be in an advanced state of decline that cannot be reversed; experience unbearable physical or mental suffering from their illness, disease, disability or state of decline that cannot be relieved under conditions that they consider acceptable; and be at a point where their natural death has become reasonably foreseeable.
Up until Oct. 31 last year, a total of 744 B.C.ers had opted for assisted death. The rate is higher than other provinces due to the 321 cases on Vancouver Island, attributed to the older demographic and lifestyle choices of Island residents. With a similar population profile, we can expect to see higher numbers on the Sunshine Coast as well.
It’s not an easy thing to celebrate but it’s not something to fear, either. It’s a personal choice, of immense gravity. As Sue Rodriguez said many years ago: “If I cannot give consent to my own death, whose body is this?”
