Awakening people to a sense of their own value
My hope is for people to know that I find them worth fighting for.
Recently in London, I met a young journalist from Croatia. Surprised to learn about the euthanasia crisis in Canada, he asked if he could interview me and then translate the interview for a Croatian publication. That piece is published, here, and below you can read my original responses in English.
Euthanasia was legalized in Canada in 2016. How did it come about, that is, what social forces led to legalization?
Suffering is posing an enduring conundrum to us. Particularly in our highly developed, technocratic, social media-filtered societies, experiences of disease, disability, and death simply seem not fit the script. Such experiences call into question all of our conceits about being in total control of our lives.
When, for example, a certain diagnosis threatens our plans, prerogatives, and even relationships, this produces anxiety and an instinct to manage, control, and solve as we have grown accustomed to doing across so many other spheres of life.
For more than forty years, an organization called Dying with Dignity has been purporting to address this anxiety with a proposal to “relieve unwanted suffering” and promote “choice in dying.” Unfortunately, this “modest proposal” is as sinister as the one put forward by Jonathan Swift’s famous satire by that title. Dying with Dignity advocates euthanasia – the direct killing of patients on request by medical professionals – as a means to relieve suffering. They insist that euthanasia be available to any consenting person, age 12 and above.
I am often asked how doctors, who once swore the Hippocratic oath, could come to intentionally end the lives of their patients. Consider the words of Dr. Stefanie Green who, in her euthanasia memoir, says she simply does not see it that way:
I didn’t see assisted dying as ending someone’s life; the underlying illness and suffering were doing that. I understood it more as facilitating someone’s wishes. [...] We were always taught to “first, do no harm,” and helping end a life was always assumed to be a harm. But to me, and now in law, in certain specific circumstances, it wasn’t harm as much as help.
The specific way that Canada legalized euthanasia was by creating an exception to the Criminal Code offense of homicide. This exception allowed medical practitioners to be involved in euthanasia without being guilty of homicide.. This is how we have seen the dramatic distortion of harm into help, of homicide into “MAID” – an acronym that stands for medical assistance in dying.
What has changed since then? What are the consequences, seven years later? How many people have undergone euthanasia?
Since 2016, more than 50,000 Canadians have been euthanized. In fact, for perspective, the number of Canadians euthanized since legalization is on par with the total number of Canadians who died of Covid. This is one of the gravest and most urgent social crises of our time, and one about which many Canadians remain largely unaware.
In less than a decade, Canada went from legalizing euthanasia for those with “grievous and irremediable conditions” to expanding the practice to the extent that euthanasia now accounts for 4.1% of all deaths in the country. The rate is increasing rapidly. There was a 31% increase in a single year, from 2021 to 2022.
Once euthanasia becomes societally accepted as a means to end suffering, then there appears to be no legitimate basis for excluding certain people from it.
In the name of equality, Canada has expanded euthanasia to those without terminal illnesses, to persons with disabilities and neurological conditions and, beginning this March, to those for whom a mental illness is the sole underlying condition. This means that persons struggling with anxiety and depression, eating disorders and self-harm, trauma and substance abuse will all become “eligible” to have a doctor or nurse end their lives.
In the midst of radical need and vulnerability, such persons also risk being offered euthanasia unsolicited. Professional and regulatory bodies are now mandating that euthanasia be raised as a “treatment option” for every eligible patient. This power of suggestion increases suicidality. Last year, three times as many Canadians died by assisted suicide than took their own lives by themselves.
Has the perception of death changed in Canadian society during this period? Is there a critical voice in Canadian society that speaks out against euthanasia?
It seems that, almost every day, there is a new story in Canada about euthanasia coercion. Ever since euthanasia became seen as a treatment, it has been offered to Canadians in place of cancer treatment, psychiatric support, experimental therapies, affordable housing, social assistance, and even a wheelchair or ramp. Empirically, we have seen again and again that euthanasia consistently represents not a form of care, but a failure of care.
Euthanasia deaths are also glorified by Canada’s state broadcaster. Unfortunately, taxpayers are compelled to fund this journalism that actually violates the kind of rules and ethics many jurisdictions have concerning reporting on suicide.
In Canada, some of the people speaking out against euthanasia, include: palliative care physicians, psychiatrists, advocates of disability inclusion and human rights, and some religious leaders. Lately, some of the most important opposition to euthanasia has come from outside Canada. International pressure and condemnation rightly jolts Canadians to question the extent to which we live up to our aspirations of generosity, hospitality, human rights, and being a place for everyone to belong.
It is important to be mindful that many of those threatened by euthanasia do not always have the means to voice their opposition and protect themselves. But in fact, we are them and they are us. The fact that I am currently young, healthy, and hopeful is incidental, and I am determined to create a society in which I would belong and could somehow flourish if I were old, sick, or even, in deep despair.
You act in different ways against euthanasia and the very idea on which it rests. What are you doing to raise awareness of the value of life?
The first thing is to see and affirm the values that others do not see right now. Many cannot see the value of those who are elderly, poor, living with disabilities, or struggling with mental health challenges. Whenever others fail to see our value, our own temptation to self-rejection increases. Fortunately, the opposite is also true. When someone takes the time to truly see and affirm you, your sense of your own value is capable of being revived.
I am always speaking about the value of my little brother who only lived for 7 months and died when I was 2. I also speak about my grandfather who lived with my family throughout my young adult years from the time he was 89 until he died at age 96. One way we can raise awareness about the value of life is by sharing our own stories that testify to the love and appreciation we have for those in our lives, particularly for those whose value others might struggle to see.
Another way I contribute to building a culture of resilience is by asking people who their heroes are. If there is no one you admire, no one you consider exemplary, you may be at risk of supporting euthanasia. But, as soon as you can reflect on why you admire someone, you see that there is no real story and no real heroes without suffering. We do not seek suffering but, as Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl put it, “In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.”
Practically, I prevent euthanasia and encourage hope through writing, speaking, casual conversations, organizing community events, and producing short films. To learn more about the project, visit DyingToMeetYou.com.
What fruits has your activism yielded so far?
I will share something quite personal: When I, as a young person, speak publicly about the value of the elderly, there is a twinkle in the eyes of seniors as though to say, “You know our secret, that we have much to give.”
The most important fruit of my activism is awakening people to a sense of their own value, and celebrating it. This is especially important because euthanasia represents a serious crisis of self-esteem. Everybody deserves to know that they matter, that they are loved, that they are wanted. To be alive is to have a task in the world that only you can fulfill but that is never only about you.
My hope is for people to know that I find them worth fighting for, that they have an advocate who is genuinely interested in what they are going through, and that I want the very best for them. I would be happy for everyone I meet to know I find it worthwhile to dedicate my life to defending the infinite value of the human person – to defending them.