MAiD in Canada

I understand you naysayers. I do. But you view MAiD with an entirely negative lens. You see it as a threat, mostly to others, but sometimes to yourself.

And I get it. You worry about MAiD, a patient-centric, request driven, add-on to our publicly funded healthcare system, morphing into government officials terminating "undesirables".

Well yes, don't vote Conservative, is my best advice, because MAiD is here to stay.

Whether Parliament is ever able to write legislation to satisfy the courts and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the same Charter used to convict Robert Latimer for killing his severely disabled and in excruciating pain daughter, Tracy, as well it should have done, although I'd have convicted the medical establishment of Saskatchewan along with him) - or not - we won the right to end our lives by appointment, within our healthcare system, doctors trained in the practice of MAiD at our service.

We're not going back to suffering to the bitter end or ending our lives by suicides that leave others traumatized and left to clean up the mess because you're afraid democracy will fail and fascism prevail.

Like I said, don't vote Conservative. Don't vote New Democrat either because New Democrats don't want to win or they would have done so by now and you're just electing Conservatives.

Cripes, even when New Democrats do win other New Democrats just accuse them of turning into Liberals anyway. How about instead of having a party at all New Democrats just run as Liberals, eh? Move the party whichever which way from within.

Like Marc Miller.

To those of you who say MAiD goes against your God's will I say so don't have MAiD.

I would also like to ask how you know this. If God's will, as opposed to doctors' will, Tracy Latimer would likely have died long before the years of invasive and cruel interventions doctors perpetrated to keep her alive and in excruciating pain. But then we wouldn't have the ruling by the Supreme Court and conviction of her loving father for taking her life because he could no longer bear it.

So yay, amirite? Because we do have that ruling. And it came under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, no less, the Charter Conservatives want to abolish (even though the Federal Court just decided invocation of the Emergency Act violated the Charter rights of the Freedom Convoyers too stupid to appreciate the irony).

Robert Latimer, loving father, but loving father who killed his daughter, even though it was to end her pain and suffering, was sentenced to life without parole for ten years.

Would Tracy Latimer have qualified for MAiD? No, not as it stands now, not even if she were to beg for it. And it isn't likely any child in similar pain and suffering ever will, so maybe we could we need to keep a closer eye on doctors who believe in life at any cost?

Certainly she wouldn't qualify if her father begged for it. MAiD doesn't accept requests on behalf of, nor should it. No, Tracy Latimer would still be condemned to her life of excruciating pain and that would be entirely thanks to the medical establishment of Saskatchewan.

Shame you never got to shove that steel rod up her spine or remove her hip or whatever the hell fucked up madness you were empowered for some sick reason to perpetrate upon that poor child.

Robert Latimer has never expressed an ounce of regret and good for him. But good for the Supreme Court too because *no.

*Thank you universe for not putting me in his position. Orange is not my colour.

But speaking of, I've told the story of my mother and MAiD. She was 95. To you who think a person in psychological pain shouldn't qualify for MAiD, well, fuck off, you're wrong.

For years my mother had wanted to die in her sleep. Every time I got a call from first her seniors' residence, and then the nursing home, I hoped it was to tell me that's what had happened. Finally. Oh please oh please oh please let my mother be dead.

Not to make it all about me but my mother wasn't the only one suffering from her being alive.

It was torture. I was so relieved when she qualified for MAiD I did a jig of joy. Oh happy day my mother has an appointment with death.

We all have our fears. My mother's was of being vulnerable. She was terrified by vulnerability. She never wanted to get old, never mind old, blind, deaf, unable to use her hands, balance, eventually being strapped into a wheelchair lest she fall out of it - which she did a few times - suddenly in strange surroundings.

She hated being alive with every fiber of her shrinking being.

I was terrified one of you naysayers would nix her MAiD approval somehow too. I gave one personal support worker the stink eye when she broke down crying over the news my mother would be leaving her care in the morning, news she'd somehow managed to get, even though nursing homes do their best to keep it quiet until the inmate, I mean, patient, is gone.

The private nursing homes probably fight requests tooth and nail, not wanting to part with the money from a sitting duck. Have I told you not to vote Conservative lately? It's insane, you know. They're insane.

They only care about money.

So tread carefully now, I said to myself, while I asked the sobbing woman, calmly as I could, "Oh are you opposed to medical assistance in dying? Because I assure you my mother very much wants it. She's thrilled, in fact. Happy for the first time in years. I hope you're not going to cause her any trouble over her choice"

"No!" she said. "Not at all, I just don't like being left out of the loop. I feel like this is being sprung on me." And there was a bunch more yada yada blah blah and I realized she was just kind of a drama queen/nutcase - but not in a caring way - so I was all "there, there" relieved I wouldn't have to bind, gag, and lock her in the closet 'til the deed was safely done and my mother had gone to her great reward.

That's how my mother always put it, going to her great reward.

Jesus Christ nursing homes are hard places to be if you don't want to be in one. Bravo to all you good sons and daughters visiting mom and dad. And all my respect for you too young to be there but needing the care because you are the eyes and ears for the rest of us, not to mention great comfort to the staff who truly enjoy their jobs or they couldn't do them.

Certainly they're not in it for the money.

And no one wants to be in one but apparently we don't know how to treat each other if we're not doing our bit for... I don't know... the GDP?

Ugh. Some days I really hate us.

Here's the essential part of MAiD, the part you naysayers don't seem to get, which is that the request for MAiD had to come from my mother and be reaffirmed by her ever step of the way including right before the procedure. And she had to qualify. The doctors involved had to determine, at every step of the process, that my mother wanted to end her life because she was in pain and suffering AND SHE WAS 95 AND COMPLETELY INCAPACITATED FFS!!!

It was the steel rod doctors wanted to shove up Tracy Latimer's spine that broke Robert Latimer's back, to put it horribly. So tell me again the only way we should be allowed to die is from natural causes.

Natural causes. Gimme a fucking break.

Another MAiD win? That's what goes on the death certificate. Gotta love it.

No one who stood to benefit in any way from my mother's death could be involved with the process either. So not me. Not any of my siblings. In fact, pity the patients who aren't capable of advocating for it because it IS a process. I don't know how people who don't have people manage.

Look, naysayers, I'm not being cavalier about this. It's an awesome responsibility. But so it goes. With rights come responsibilities. And yes, risks. But your fear of me having the choice - of yourself having the choice? - will not stand in the way of MAiD. The courts have decided in OUR favour. And believe me, it's an important right to have and a real privilege, too much of a privilege and not enough of a right, in my opinion. Now it's up to Parliament to meet the standards of what the courts have decided and yes, it's going to be trial and error but we can't rescind the right to call on our healthcare system for help when we want to end our lives.

So please don't vote Conservative because those assholes don't give a shit about our pain and suffering. They only care about money.

And ask yourself on whose behalf you're afraid of MAiD - mine? Or your own?

Or is it the responsibility that comes with the right because, yes, it's an awesome one, for sure.