The slippery slope starts with the hardest of tragic cases, but - just as prolofe advocates have always warned - it's all downhill from there. A Canadian woman has been offered state assistance to end her own life after presenting to the emergency room with back pain, before she was offered any other treatment.
84-year-old Miriam Lancaster explained that, in April last year, she woke up one day in excruciating pain. Her daughter called for an ambulance, and Miriam was taken to Vancouver General Hospital.
Moments after Miriam was brought into the emergency ward, a doctor offered to aid her in ending her life under Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide regime, known as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID).
“Moments after they wheeled me into the emergency ward, a young female doctor approached my bed”, Miriam said. “After running through the usual questions about what was hurting and how much, she said, as casually as one might offer a cup of tea: ‘Do you want MAID?’”
“I was stunned. No one had even told me what was wrong with me. All I knew was that I was in tremendous pain and that a stranger had just suggested I might want to end my life”, she said.
“I was taken aback. That was the last thing on my mind, I just wanted to find out why I was in pain — I did not want to die”, Miriam stated.
After Miriam had declined to consent to the ending of her life, she was then diagnosed with a fractured pelvis, in an area that cannot be operated on and which must be allowed to heal on its own. She was transferred to the University of British Columbia’s hospital, where she remained for three weeks while she recovered.
Almost immediately after leaving the hospital, Miriam packed her bags again to set off on an adventure holiday to Cuba.
“It’s funny to think that not so long ago, a doctor stood over my hospital bed and offered me a way out. It scares me to think what might have happened. In another version of events, perhaps I would have been alone, or more frightened, or more exhausted. Perhaps I would have paused to consider it”, she said.