Dear Editor,
I was sorry to read in a recent edition of the Western Wheel that the local hospice is planning to offer MAID.
We all know that medical assistance in dying means medical professionals killing patients, but we ignore that because it makes us uncomfortable.
Death is a fact of life; it is not a right. A right only exists as the inverse of another person’s responsibility. If we are going to claim that a person has a right to die, we are claiming that it is someone’s duty to kill them.
It is ridiculous to say that doctors now will be morally obliged to kill their patients. Up until recent times they have always sworn the Hippocratic Oath, promising never to harm patients. Or will there be medical professionals whose only job is killing patients?
Rather than trying to make euthanasia sound acceptable, it would be in everyone’s better interest to focus on ethical pain management, and giving people opportunities to bring joy and meaning to those at the ends of their lives. There are many who would be happy to share their talents - by visiting, making music, and bringing animals to a hospice. We should bring joy to the suffering, not offer them death as the solution to their problems.
Rose Langdon
Okotoks
