Ford: Everyone should have same and equal rights

By Catherine Ford

Let’s see if I have this straight: All Canadians can choose to kill themselves privately in any gruesome way they favour, leaving a corpse to be found.
Most Canadians can choose to die with dignity, to die without pain, to die surrounded by the people who love them. But some Canadians likely will be prohibited from this second option, based on public opinion and predicted government decision.

This is what our country is offering some of our fellow citizens — no choice. No choice to live or die except by their own hand and whatever is available. (Having seen the shock, horror and grief that came in the aftermath of a friend finding her husband dead in their garage, I would not wish that on anyone. The shock hit her hard, but the public opinion that came after stunned her. The death was covered over, not spoken about, greeted with something close to contempt. We are not necessarily kind or welcoming to those left behind by suicide.)
This is the situation in which Canadians with underlying mental illness find themselves: Without evidence of irremediable physical pain and deterioration, they are forced to be treated as dependent children, incapable of making their own decisions.
Can we really be so cruel?
We can, and we are. The aftermath of the report from the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying is a recommendation that those Canadians whose sole underlying “disease” is mental illness be barred from accessing MAID. The fear expressed by those who support the decision is that access would put vulnerable people at risk. Still, four senators on the committee have recommended that the decision be sent to the Supreme Court.
But such an action should not absolve the Canadian government from making the right and humane decision come the fall sitting of Parliament. Personally, I’m not holding my breath.
That successive Canadian governments have punted MAID down the road — much like the question of abortion, which also is fundamentally about choice — shows either cowardice or political sidestepping, and pandering to fringe groups of fearmongers.

Curiously, this doesn’t surprise me. Being on the leading edge of “choice” in North America has never sat well in Ottawa. Perhaps much of the foot-dragging comes from the influence of the so-called “Christian” right in the U.S.
Curiously, the leading edge has been exactly what Canada has embraced. Not without controversy and anger; not without hand-wringing and dire predictions. But Canada has done it.
Abortion is the guiding principle. Choice did not come easily, nor did it come swiftly, but it came. It arrived because of ongoing efforts by women and their supporters who believed all women have agency over their own bodies.
Abortion barely makes headlines these days. In the four decades that it has been legal (indeed, there is no law), Canadian women have not eliminated ensuing generations. Nor have we been forced to bear and birth as many children as our bodies decide to produce.
We are free to choose, and that’s the entire premise behind MAID. So ask yourself: Why are some Canadians being forced to live if they don’t want to? If they experience a complicated, long-standing, emotionally painful mental illness instead of a physical illness, why are they denied?
Because that’s the point: forcing some Canadians to live just because their pain and suffering is mental and not physical.
I have instructions in my personal directive, advising my designated decision-maker exactly what I wish. I treasure that right; I treasure the choices that are mine because I am Canadian.
That in itself should be one of life’s blessings.
Source: https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/ford-everyone-should-have-same-equal-rights