Euthanasia Essay - Laws Against Assisted Suicide in Canada

Laws Against Assisted Suicide in Canada

"This is a very special day for me. It's the day of my release, the

release from suffering, the release from the torment of my body." Those were the

words of the very first Canadian to die through the process of doctor assisted-

suicide, with the doctor being Jack Kevorkian. His name was Austin Bastable, and

in the last few years of his life he became a crusader for the right to die with

dignity.

It has been only in these last few years, with the introduction of

people such as Dr. Jack Kevorkian and Austin Bastable, that the world has begun

to see the benefits made possible by the act of assisted-suicide. The prevention

of suffering and pain made possible through this medicide, regarded as immoral

for years, affects not only the patient but their immediate and distant

relatives as well. Kevorkian told a judicial court the same one day in late

April, early May: "Suicide is not the aim. Eliminating suffering is the aim, but

you pay a price with the loss of a life." Although Kevorkian's methods have

succeeded with some difficulty, in the USA, their northern neighbour, our great

dominion of Canada, disallows the administration of this relieving practice. In

our grand country assisted suicide is illegal.

Cases of other terminally ill persons have surfaced throughout the news,

the most prominent being those related to Dr. "Death" Kevorkian. We don't often

think on what a terminally ill person might be like. They might be suffering

from Lou Gehrig's Disease. They might be suffering from multiple sclerosis. They

might be suffering from any number of other types of injuries and diseases. What

we don't think about are the cases that bring out our most empathetic feelings.

Take the case of one Christine Busalacchi, who was so severely injured

in an accident that she now lives in what her father calls a "persistent

vegetative condition." Vegetative is precisely the word to describe her

condition. She has lost enough weight to cause her to appear as someone else.

She has her right leg bent with her knee always in the air and her left foot is

frozen in a quite unnatural manner.