It has become the preoccupation of the boomer generation. Those who may have wanted to “live forever” were consumed in their youth, or at least distracted somewhat, by drugs, sex and rock and roll.
But in the shift from groovy to geezer, drugs are now less likely to be taken for pleasure and more likely consumed to reduce pain and sourced over the counter and not on a street corner.
Sex, well, that too, is often now aided by Big Pharma. (“If your erection lasts more than four hours…” Really?)
As for rock and roll, it may be here to stay, but you are not.
The aging cohort so used to setting the cultural and political agenda has made a decided shift.
Now closer to the end than the beginning of their lives, as well as dealing with aging parents, there has been a growing demand that they be allowed to be as deliberate in their deaths as they have been in their lives.
That was certainly reflected in the Supreme Court of Canada case decided two weeks ago. The court ruled physician assisted suicide was a matter of an individual’s Charter rights.
The federal government was given a year in which to come up with legislation amending the Criminal Code to reflect that.
One essential caveat from the court holds that the person seeking this assisted relief be competent at the time they make the request.
And consider how far we have come. That same court, although differently composed, deliberated 22 years ago in the case of Sue Rodriguez.
Rodriguez, a terminally ill 42-year-old Victoria mother with Lou Gehrig’s disease, realizing she had less than a year to live, began a crusade to strike down a portion of the Criminal Code that made physician assisted suicide illegal. The court found against her in a split 5-4 decision.
At that time it was considered by the majority that the criminal prohibition of suicide trumped individual Charter rights.
Now there is another right to die case making its way through the legal system. It is the case of Margaret Bentley.
This week the Appeal Court of B.C. upheld a decision by the Supreme Court of British Columbia that essentially refused a request from Bentley’s family to let her die.
For those of you who have not followed this case, Bentley is an 83-year-old woman who has been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for the past 16 years and is now in the final or seventh stage.
She lives in a care home in the Fraser Valley and is incapable of speaking, moving on her own or caring for her most basic personal needs.
And she is also not capable of recognizing anyone.
But while she was still able, Bentley left two documents outlining her requests that the courts found appeared to contradict each other. There was her 1991 “statement of wishes” and summarized by the court “in which she asked to be allowed to die should she suffer from an extreme disability with no expectation of recovery and that she not be provided with nourishment or liquids.”
Then there was a second document wherein Bentley asked that she be provided with “personal care.” Under B.C. legislation that includes providing nourishment but not going so far as to use a feeding tube.
In fact, that is what has been happening. The staff at the care home feed Bentley prompting her to eat by poking the side of her mouth with a spoon to get her to open it.
She may or may not comply depending, according to the staff, on whether she is full or whether she prefers what is being offered.
The trial judge considered that “consent” by Bentley.
In the appeal, the family lawyer argued poking her was actually assault. The appeal justices disagreed.
They upheld the trial judge’s ruling all the way down the line.
You could wait to see if this case makes it to the Supreme Court of Canada. But you may be wiser to see that your wishes for an orderly exit more are clearly stated, should you end up in Bentley’s situation, by seeking legal advice and completing a Representation Agreement.
twitter.com/allengarr
