Past United Church of Canada Moderator Jordan Cantwell’s 2016 personal submission to a Joint Parliamentary Committee examining Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) legislation, and now referenced, in part, in a revised statement on MAID approved by the Executive of the United Church General Council on May 25, 2020, is so replete with problematic thinking that it makes one despair of guidance from the United Church on the subject of MAID and especially Advance Directives.
One of her arguments seems to be the risk to “personal responsibility” if action to end life is taken on the basis of an advance directive expressing one’s wishes about termination after one has lost rational self-determination.
But wait a minute.
Isn’t this the point?
It is precisely the intention to retain personal responsibility rather than to arrogate it to others (family if you are lucky; perhaps to someone you never knew) that underlies the emergence of advance directives.
The inadequacy of Cantwell’s argument goes deeper: It displays a failure to grasp the psychology of how our human life unfolds – certainly for those shaped by the Bible. The biblical perspective is forward looking – whether the perception is the divine vindication in the future Day of the Lord or, the Coming of the Son of Man to consummate the victory over sin and death.
We could say cryptically that we live, in part, in our future, or alternatively, our future is with us here and now. As the philosopher Henri Bergson pointed out, the authentic way to experience time is not as chopped up segments (past, present, future) but as duration which flows forward and backward.
The fancy word for this is “proleptic”; it stands for a future event – something that has not yet happened – making its impact and effect felt in the present.
We do this all the time with Powers of Attorney and Wills and pledges of eternal love; similarly, some of us want to do it with our dying. We can experience our dying proleptically and can take actions to deal with it by way of leaving instructions about our values and purposes.
I have circumambulated hospital corridors and glanced through open doorways at the aged, vegetative figures lying abed in fetal positions. I decided that’s not the way I want to leave this world. And that was long before the present Covid-19 crisis tore the veil of silence away from our inadequate treatment of the elderly in long-term care facilities.
But the counter-argument could say: Unlike other future plans and proposals, death is different. There is a finality to death that forestalls any future desire to change one’s mind. There is not, of course, in the circumstances of which we speak, much mind left to change. But the best way of dealing with this disputed question is to leave it as a matter of faith: I won’t force you to be killed, if you pledge not to force me to stay alive in conditions that I would find unacceptable.
Cantwell’s introduction of an Orwellian version of euthanasia into the discussion is also breathtakingly irrelevant. Cantwell says, “to imagine a society where, as a matter of course, individuals who had reached a certain stage of dementia would be euthanized is inconceivable, regardless of whether the action is supported by end of life directions.”
Two points need to be made.
First, no one is suggesting euthanasia – in her words – “as a matter of course.”
Second, “regardless” is not an argument but a dismissal of all recourse to fact and argument.
I’m not promoting a cross-the-board application of a single outcome (euthanasia for all those with advanced dementia or those otherwise unable to make decisions for themselves). I am promoting a social policy with latitude that allows for personal choice and recognition of different determinants of quality of life.