FAITH MATTERS
What will the new year 2024 bring?
Hopefully it will bring decisions that place life ahead of death, writes Bishop Gerard Bergie
By Gerard Bergie Contributing Columnist
Dec 30, 2023
Once again, we begin a new year. What will 2024 bring?
One thing that we may see is an expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) legislation to include those persons whose sole underlying condition isa mental disorder. The implementation date was March 17, 2023.
Many may know, even if you are not Irish, that March 17 is St. Patrick’s Day. I believe that we have all benefitted from ‘the luck of the Irish’ because the Canadian government recently announced that it is now seriously considering pausing the plan to expand MAiD.
Justice Minister Arif Virani recently stated that the cabinet will now consider the report of a joint parliamentary committee that focused on the expansion of MAiD. The advice that seemed to be common among the mental health experts was caution. The reason being that it may not be possible to have sufficient safeguards to protect the vulnerable.
In a recent interview with the Canadian Press, Virani stated, “We’ll evaluate all that comprehensively to make a decision whether we move ahead on March17, or whether we pause.”
This would be the second time the federal government decided to delay implementation of the expansion. The initial one-year delay was the result of both public and political concern. The government acknowledged it needed more time and established a new implementation date of March 17, 2024.
As already mentioned, this date is St. Patrick’s Day. Could the intercession of this beloved saint have anything to do with this additional delay? I would like to think that the answer is yes.
peaking from my Roman Catholic faith tradition, we consider life sacred from conception to the moment of natural death. When a person suffers, our tradition has always focused on support, love and easing the pain. Offering death as a remedy is never an option; however, the person is never rejected, especially the most vulnerable.
Vulnerability comes to mind when we consider expanding MAiD to adults whose only medical condition is a mental disorder.
In another article from The Canadian Press, Laurel Walker, a woman who has struggled with thoughts of suicide, is deeply concerned about expanding MAiD to those struggling with mental illness. Walker noted her biggest concern is that vulnerable people languish on long wait lists and cannot afford to pay for psychological care that is not publicly funded. Given the proper care they could overcome their illness and would not choose death.
Another extremely vulnerable group are those suffering from drug addiction. There are some in the medical world who want to add this group as a subset to those suffering from mental illness.
Dr. David Martell presented a paper at a recent conference of The Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine, proposing a framework to expand MAiD eligibility to drug users. He stated, “It is not fair to exclude people from eligibility purely because their mental disorder might either partly or in full be a substance-use disorder. It has to do with treating people equally” (Zivo, Adam: “So now we're going to euthanize drug addicts?” National Post, Oct. 26,2023).
Research supports that a large number of homeless suffer with addictions. This means MAiD could also be offered to those living on the streets. The ‘slippery slope’ mentality may lead some to consider this as one solution to the growing issue of homelessness in our country. I pray that this would never be the case.
To answer the question that I began with, I hope that 2024 will bring many blessings to our land. Let us help each other to choose life over death, especially the most vulnerable.