A year ago, Canada legalised medically assisted suicide for terminally ill people approaching death. But one man's activism has forced Canada to ask difficult and controversial questions about the limits on an individual's right to die.
Continue Reading → Adam Maier-Clayton’s controversial right-to-die campaign
People who find no value in their lives should be allowed the choice to end them. Right? Wrong, says Dr John Fox – and here’s why.
Continue Reading → Assisted dying devalues the disabled: At first look, it all seems so sensible
This morning I was reading The Art of Death by Edwidge Danticat. In it she recounts how her own mother refused all pain medication as she was dying of ovarian cancer because she didn’t want to be “gaga” at the end. That reminded me of this post I’d been meaning to write for a while. I hope it might one day save you or a loved one a great deal of unnecessary suffering.
Continue Reading → On pain and palliative care
The parents of sick baby Charlie Gard are reportedly concerned the lawyer appointed to represent their baby son heads a euthanasia charity. Victoria Butler-Cole, who speaks on Charlie’s behalf in court, is chairman of Compassion in Dying, a sister organisation to Dignity in Dying.
In the year since euthanasia became legal, we have witnessed a powerful political push to normalize it as part of medicine in Canada. Yet many doctors remain opposed to the practice. Most would like to see it rigorously limited. And some, for reasons of personal and/or professional conscience, refuse categorically to be part of it.
Continue Reading → Conscience and Canadian doctors