An essential task : to reflect on our individual and collective quest for a peaceful death and a death in peace
Montreal, April 13, 2022 – The “Statutory Review of the Provisions of the Criminal Code Relating to Medical Assistance in Dying and their Application” will begin today at 2:30 pm EST. The Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying (Senate and House of Commons of Canada) will have just over two months (until June 23) to study “issues relating to mature minors, advance requests, mental illness, the state of palliative care in Canada and the protection of Canadians with disabilities”. This work begins as an expert panel on medical assistance in dying and mental illness is soon due to report to the federal government. There are also calls for the Quebec government to introduce legislation that would allow medical assistance in dying for incapacitated people through advanced directives.
Faced with these multiple projects aimed at broadening access to medical assistance in dying, the Living with Dignity citizen network believes it is essential to reflect on our individual and collective quest for a peaceful death and a death in peace.
Today, Living with Dignity is releasing a new video, in its series Expanding Access to Medical Assistance in Dying, entitled “Mort paisible et mort en paix” (Peaceful Death and Dying in Peace). The video is currently available in French only.
Louis-André Richard, who would be the first to choose a peaceful death, questions reducing our relationship to death to only being content with a peaceful death. The Professor of Philosophy has participated in the preparation of Bill 52 (Quebec law concerning end-of-life care) since 2010. His expertise is in ethical and political philosophy. For more than 15 years, he has offered training in palliative care in Quebec and France. He holds a doctorate in Philosophy, Palliative culture and society, and is the author of several books on the subject, including “La cigogne de Minerve. Philosophy, Palliative Culture and Society”(Laval University Press, 2018).
This video is the fourth in a series of seven, all of which are available on the YouTube page of Living with Dignity:
– Mort paisible et mort en paix; (Peaceful Death and Death in Peace)
– Avant d’élargir l’accès à l’aide médicale à mourir au Québec (Before Expanding Access to Medical Assistance in Dying in Quebec);
– Baliser l’aide médicale à mourir pour troubles mentaux? (Safeguards for MAiD for mental disorders?;
– Directives anticipées et réalités de la fin de vie (Advance directives and the realities of end-of-life).
The next three videos will be shared in the coming weeks.
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Media contact:
Jasmin Lemieux-Lefebvre
Coordinator
Living with Dignity
directionVDD@gmail.com
APR
2022