To the Editor,
Re: Right to die shouldn’t be considered a charter right, Letters, March 8.
Once again, we’re hearing from someone who wants to foist his beliefs on all Canadians.
My health issues started when I was very young and life-threatening ones started in my mid-20s. As I’ve aged, my health problems have increased and at almost 73, my quality of life has decreased substantially. When my quality of life gets to the point that I feel life is no longer worth living, I will choose assisted dying.
I’m disgusted by those activists and zealots who feel that they have the right to make life choices for me and by those who feel that their religion trumps mine, therefore I must abide by their wishes.
I have no wish to make choices for those people and I insist that I have the right to live – and die – as I choose, not as they choose. It is now the right of every Canadian with serious health problems to decide when life has become unbearable for them.
Gail Radford-RossNanaimo
To the Editor,
Re: Right to die shouldn’t be considered a charter right, Letters, March 8.
Under the new proposal for assisted suicide, I will qualify. I have chronic, unmanageable pain and, partially as a result, severe depression. Every morning when I wake, my first thoughts are of suicide.
The new legislation, and indeed the Supreme Court decision, read new rights into the charter. I may have the right to kill myself. But can I claim a right to force someone else to do it for me?
Circumstances change. The severe depression may be ameliorated in future. Maybe I could be well enough to enjoy my grandchildren. We don’t know. Only one thing is for sure. Death is permanent. There are no choices after that.
Linda KeaysNanaimo
