Autonomy can be a powerful weapon, a tool perhaps both. What makes autonomy more complex is that it isn’t just science it’s also ethics. Murder, accidents, suicide, physician assisted suicide all have autonomy in the background. It answers every question we have in our head about what we perceive is the right choice.
Abortion and medically assisted suicide are no exception either. Abortion is a tangled web of confusion. There are two motives that arise as to wether abortion is a reproductive right in itself or is it a decision that harms another right? We have amendments in our constituencies that are agreed on in the political agenda that are rights but what if its also entirely something else? Medically assisted suicide is of two types; medical assistance in dying (MAiD) and physician assisted death (PAS). MAiD can include euthanasia for administering. Healthcare costs in today’s world are rising. We have a substantial workforce that can deliver treatments which we could only dream of in the 18th & 19th century! Opinions, January 22nd 1973 and the Roe v. Wade case. Norma McCorvey, a 3rd time mom in 1969 wanted to undergo an abortion. At that time, an abortion was possible if the mother’s life was at risk to carry the baby at full term. In came the Roe v. Wade case, Mrs McCorvey would be the plaintiff of the case. She had her 1st child after her marriage at 16 years of age and would go on to divorce after the child was born. She would give up her 2nd child for adoption. This case would arguably make abortion legal in the United States. Currently, abortion is still illegal in 13 states of the US. The baby and the mother do indeed have their own constitutional rights and ideally both should have their rights protected. It was on this ground that on January 22nd, 1973 it was still declared as unconstitutional.
Babies have rights too!
The controversial yet infamous Baby Doe case of April 1982 needs no remainder. The baby was born with down syndrome and an abnormal connection of the trachea and esophagus. Immediate surgery was necessary to correct the defects clinically presented. Under the physician’s advice, the parents chose to not accept treatment under the pretense that the physician mentioned that surgery and medical care would not improve the infant’s cognitive impairment. It was a perplexing decision that had to be made, so the hospital officials had the Indiana Juvenile Courts appoint a guardian to decide. Unfortunately, the court had ruled in favour of the parents, and the next thing that happened was that the child had died from dehydration and pneumonia after five days. The media gave this baby’s incident a name ‘Baby Doe.’
MAiD has created a catastrophe. There are now clinical practices with the doctors playing the role of ‘Doctor Death’ its legal to want to die, to pick up the choice of not continuing treatment and providing access to healthcare similar to the Roe v. Wade case. A confusion in what’s right and what’s wrong. Wether we are eliminating one option or an option that eliminates all the other options. Some people think, including patients that there’s a breach of trust and healthcare needs which aren’t met when it needs to be. A fear is present as to wether psychiatric treatment is wrongfully delivered. In Canada, for a patient to receive MAiD services at their doorstep, one must be approved according to the eligibility criteria held by the country’s judicial laws, by either two independent nurse practitioners or two physicians. Other end-of-life choices are voluntary stopping of eating and drinking (VSED), voluntary stopping of care (VSC), do-not-resuscitate orders, palliative sedation possibly. Dying With Dignity, a Canadian organization provides this choice of having an assisted suicide.
Note: Here, ‘child’ and ‘foetus’ are used interchangeably but both have rights equal to that of the mother in the aforementioned article.
Credit: Do you want to die today?-Fault Lines Documentary (Al Jazeera), Dying With Dignity Canada website, https://reproductiverights.org/maps/abortion-laws-by-state/, https://www.britannica.com/, https://embryo.asu.edu/.
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