Anti-euthanasia groups in Quebec are concerned by a political push in Quebec to widen the province's euthanasia law to include advanced directives for dementia patients. Photo courtesy of Morgan via Flickr [https://flic.kr/p/8kRpJM]
If Quebec opens up euthanasia for those who sign advanced directives before they become incapacitated, the rest of Canada could follow, warns Aubert Martin, the executive director of the Quebec grassroots group Living with Dignity/Vivre dans la Dignité.
Quebec’s euthanasia law is more restrictive than the federal law, limiting the killing of patients to those who have the capacity to consent and who are terminally ill.
Martin noted the federal euthanasia law passed last year included a study on contentious issues such as advanced directives and euthanasia for consenting minors and for those with mental illness. “What’s happening in Quebec will have a great impact on the ongoing studies that started in December,” he said.
“The slippery slope is really a logical extension,” said Alex Schadenburg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. “Once you legalize killing it becomes discrimination not to allow it for someone under 18, for mental illness alone, or for those with advanced directives.
Schadenburg expressed concern groups like his are not part of the federal government study, which instead seems to be relying on research from euthanasia advocates.
The pressure to open up euthanasia to the mentally incapacitated follows the laying of second-degree murder charges on Feb. 21 against Michel Cadotte for the death of his wife Jocelyne Lizotte, 60, who had Alzheimer’s disease.
“It’s going at a very fast speed, the pressure to include advanced directives,” said Martin. “At first, we were shocked by the reaction of the Quebec government and all parties, actually.”
He noted the investigation into the death is only beginning and Cadotte had admitted on Facebook that he had “cracked” under the pressure of caring for his wife, who had been living in a long-term care facility.
“Instead of questioning the lack of resources to support caregivers, the government and all parties jumped to the conclusion that we should open euthanasia to incapacitated people,” Martin said.
“It’s quite shocking. It’s not the kind of reaction we would expect a government to have. It’s like they are eager to open the debate, as if they were waiting for that somehow.
The Physicians’ Alliance Against Euthanasia expressed sadness at Lizotte’s death and outrage at the “loneliness her husband experienced, and that of so many other caregivers, relatives or spouses of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s.”
“But what is most disturbing is the reaction of politicians for whom the ‘solution’ to this tragedy is to propose euthanasia by advance directive for people suffering from dementia,” said the group’s Feb. 27 news release.
“Imagine killing a person, who does not ask to die, with composure, because earlier in her life she wrote that she did not want to get where she is now,” the Alliance said, noting a case like this happened recently in the Netherlands where a woman had to be held down by her family while a doctor administered a lethal injection she resisted receiving.
“The vast majority are happy, in a safe and welcoming environment, whether in society, in family or in specialized residences.”
Douglas coach Willis May, left, and St. Matthews Tigers coach Jean Guillaume exchange school jerseys with number 17 to commemorate the 17 victims of the Stoneman Douglas high school shooting. Photo courtesy of St. Mattew's Tigers, Twitter
Even after losing 30-6 on Sept. 1, the Ottawa school football team walked away from their first international game at the 2018 Freedom Bowl in Atlanta, Ga., with full hearts, knowing the experience was about much more than playing a game.
“We were honoured to be part of a game for a team that wants to get back on track,” said Jean Guillaume, teacher and football coach at St. Matthew Catholic High School in Ottawa.
What made the game special was that the Tigers’ opponents were from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School of Parkland, Fla., site of one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history. On Feb. 14, 2018, a 19-year-old gunman opened fire at the high school, killing 17 students and staff, and injuring 17 others.
“It took me a bit of time to realize that it was Parkland where there was a shooting,” Guillaume said. “I met with the kids to explain to the guys the context and how important it was and how great of an honour it was to be chosen to play against them.”
One of the victims of the shooting was assistant football coach Aaron Feis, who jumped in front of the gunfire to shield his students.
It was Feis’ story that stood out for Guillaume and, as he reflected on the tragedy, he realized that he would have done the same thing if he were put in the same situation.
“I know (the team) very well and I’m really, really close to them,” said Guillaume. “So if there would be such a situation, I don’t think I would react differently. That’s why it was so touching…. As a coach and as a leader, you have to protect the kids.”
A week before the tournament, Guillaume reached out to Douglas head coach Willis May. They talked mostly about football and their training programs, connecting with each other through their common love of the game.
“We spoke for at least two and a half hours on the phone,” he said. “He told me that there were some kids that didn’t want to go back to the school and there were still some kids that were affected by it, but I made sure we stuck to talk about football and giving our kids a great opportunity.”
The Douglas football team has added new routines in preparation for this year’s season. The team observes a 17-second moment of silence before every practice to mark the 17 lives lost earlier this year. They also pay tribute to their deceased coach Feis with a life-size banner that team members pat for good luck before they take the field.
If we’ve said it once we’ve said it 1000 times. Football is sooo much bigger than a sport. It’s a brotherhood that bonds players, family and community. There are no boundaries.
“There is a whole different feel to this game for us,” May told Score Atlanta. “We’ve never gotten to travel like this for a game…. This is something that the kids see the bigger teams getting to do each season and our kids are really excited about having this opportunity.”
Guillaume said that the best way the St. Matthews Tigers could honour their brothers from Stoneman Douglas was not by focusing on the tragedy but by offering them good competition.
The game was part of a three-day tournament organized to raise awareness for veterans, wounded soldiers and their military families in the United States.
Twelve teams from high schools across the United States were matched to play six games over Labour Day weekend with St. Matthew being the only Canadian team.
After the game, the teams shook hands and thanked each other for a great game. Coaches exchanged team jerseys and they ended their meeting by taking a knee and praying together.
“That’s the one thing I want to instil in them is that in life, you don’t go to God only when bad things happen, but when good things happen, you go to God and thank Him also,” said Guillaume.
“As Christians, we see the world as a global village and when things happen to our brothers across the border, it happens to us as well.”
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Push it ahead almost four months to Labour Day weekend (when summer wraps up and everybody’s scrambling to get back on board Joni Mitchell’s “carousel of time”) or even nine months to the spring equinox (when milder weather puts the wind in our tails and thaws the coagulated sap in our veins) and the world around us would both reflect and affirm this sense of a new beginning.
But coming up with a list of resolutions and drawing a fresh bead on one’s life goals is a grudging, thankless task in the cold, dark hollow of earliest January.
New Year’s has always felt to me like a shadowy, half-hearted add-on to the tenderness and warmth of what was celebrated just one week before.
Indeed with its rather desperate emphasis on partying and drinking (and with many newspapers dispensing their annual tips for hangover cures), New Year’s can feel like the anti-Christmas — a festival of dereliction and social panic designed to negate or erase all the serenity and gentle blessings we’ve just enjoyed.
My sense that there was something radically wrong about New Year’s celebrations was planted in about my seventh year when I jumped out of bed one brilliant New Year’s morning well ahead of my parents and, prowling through the tomb-quiet house, came upon their unlikely stash of discarded party detritus on the dining room table.
There was a pair of sparkly cone-shaped hats with elastic chinstraps, a plastic and cardboard horn with ragged red streamers, a nasty metal noisemaker that made a racket like rattled ball bearings when you spun it around by the handle.
What did any of this tawdry junk have to do with my normally sedate and responsible parents? I shuddered to imagine an environment or a context in which such garish gee-gaws would hold any appeal for them at all.
Most years I manage to avoid attending any New Year’s celebrations at all, looking up from my book or a game of Scrabble with my wife when we hear the muffled midnight rumble of fireworks being ignited on the roof of City Hall and luxuriating in our dissociation from the melee underway downtown.
When I do get roped into a New Year’s house party, I make a point of disappearing by about 11:45, ducking into some out-of-the-way room — hopefully stocked with a few books — where I hunker down for the next half hour, re-emerging when the worst of the mania has passed.
It could be that, New Year’s-wise, I’m still in a state of reaction to the horrific party I attended in my 21st year. It was ‘thrown’ (and that really is the apt term in this case) by the less-than-stable sister of the woman I was going out with.
As is quite often the way in the peak socializing years of your 20s, there were multiple parties to choose from that night and by about 10:30 the sense started to dawn on a lot of her guests that this party was a dud and it was time to move on to a more promising fete. Our hostess caught wind of this rising sentiment and moved to bar our exit by nailing planks and 2x4s across her front and side doors. (I don’t suppose I need to mention that she rented.)
While she was nailing plywood sheeting over some of the more accessible main floor windows (and trying to mollify her increasingly anxious inmates about the fun they would have if they just gave her party a chance), I located and just managed to squeeze out through the milk box next to the nailed-up side door.
I think it is the sense that Christmas is over and now life is about to revert to its usual grind that fuels the desperation I’ve always detected and abjured in New Year’s celebrations. The surest way I’ve discovered to defang this lesser holiday is to observe it as only one small part of the 12 days of Christmas.
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