Editor:
I am in my seventieth year of life. My life is finite, like everyone else’s. I want to finish this life with honour and with integrity. I want to leave a legacy to my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren that I have lived life to the fullest until my last breath.
I learn a lot of what I just wrote from my 18 year old grandson, who 14 months ago, was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma. Through 20 rounds of chemotherapy, another 25 bouts of radiation therapy and a number of surgeries, the doctors have had to admit defeat. Cancer is going to win the battle over my 18 year old grandson. But my grandson does not give up on the life he has been given. He lives each moment, and like Henry David Thoreau wrote more than a century ago, to suck the very marrow out of life. Each breath is precious. Each life is finite and ought to be lived until the last breath is naturally taken from that life. My grandson is teaching all those who encounter him this very important lesson – and his grandfather is one of them.
And that is what makes the present and the future euthanasia laws so heinous. Each life is precious and should be savoured and relished for the incredible gift it is. Our members of parliament need to do the right thing by speaking up and voting against making MAID [medical assistance in dying] more available. Even better would be to reverse and fight the recent trend to make euthanasia more accessible.
Yours,
John Siebenga