Last week, Christine Gauthier testified before the House of Commons veterans affairs committee in Canada. She was shocked when assisted suicide was suggested to her as a solution to her suffering.
A former Paralympian who served in the Canadian military contacted Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) in 2019 to request a wheelchair lift for her home so she could move around more easily.
Christine Gauthier testified before the House of Commons veterans affairs committee last week that she was shocked when a VAC employee suggested assisted suicide as a solution to her suffering.
Ms. Gauthier told the members of Parliament that she has been fighting for five years to get wheelchair accommodations in her home, according to CBC.ca.
"I have a letter that says if you are so desperate, ma'am, we can offer you medical assistance in dying," Ms. Gauthier said, according to the outlet. She agreed to provide a copy of the letter to the MPs, the outlet reports.
"I was like, 'I can't believe that you will … give me an injection to help me die, but you will not give me the tools I need to help me live,'" Ms. Gauthier said in an interview with Global News on Dec. 2.
"It was really shocking to hear that kind of comment."
Gauthier served in the Canadian Army's heavy artillery section and was severely injured in a training accident in 1995, according to CanoeICF. Her back, knees, and hips were badly damaged after a jump into a trench, and she underwent a series of surgeries, to no avail. She has participated in several Paralympic sports, including para ice hockey, para Nordic skiing, and para sprint canoe.
Ms. Gauthier said she wrote a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to raise her concerns about the anonymous employee's offer of assisted suicide.
The retired corporal's letter, dated July 9, 2021, said, "If you do not want to allow me to live with autonomy and dignity, then end my suffering and my days; but, unfortunately, you will have to do it, as my convictions and my faith prevent me from doing so," according to Global News.
On Friday, Mr. Trudeau told reporters that the VAC employee's comments were "absolutely unacceptable."
"I have said repeatedly that it is absolutely unacceptable, and as soon as we heard about it, we took action," he said.
"We are following up on investigations and we are changing protocols to ensure what should seem obvious to all of us: that it is not the place of Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), which is there to support people who stood up to serve their country, to offer them medical assistance in dying," Mr. Trudeau added.
Lawrence MacAulay, the minister of VAC, told the same committee last week that there have been four or five cases where veterans were offered suicide assistance as an option, CBC.ca reported. A VAC employee has been suspended in connection with these reports, CBC.ca reported.
They do not yet know if the suspended employee is the same one Gauthier dealt with. Mr. MacAulay urged veterans who have experienced similar treatment to report it, the outlet reported.
Assisted suicide in Canada was legalized at the federal level in 2016, according to the government's annual report on the program. In 2021, 10,064 people died from it, accounting for more than 3% of deaths in the North American country.
Every year since its legalization, all Canadian provinces have seen an increase in assisted suicide, euphemistically called "medical assistance in dying."
Since its legalization, nearly 32,000 deaths have occurred through assisted suicide.
For people receiving suicide assistance in 2021, 65.6% cited cancer as the underlying medical condition. Nearly 19% cited cardiovascular issues, and 12.4% cited chronic respiratory issues. More than 12% cited neurological conditions. According to the report, 75% of recipients cited a single main underlying medical condition. Others cited two or more.
In a column published Saturday in the New York Times, Ross Douthat criticized Canada's assisted suicide policy.
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"It is not barbaric for the law to recognize hard choices in end-of-life care, about when to withdraw life support or how aggressively to manage agonizing pain," he writes.
"It is barbaric, however, to establish a bureaucratic system that offers death as a reliable treatment for suffering and that enlists the healing profession in delivering this 'cure.' And while there may be worse evils to come, this is not a slippery-slope argument: When 10,000 people avail themselves of your euthanasia system every year, you have already entered the dystopia."
This article was originally published by the National Catholic Register (Article link). It is republished and translated with the author's permission.