By Sean Donovan: For Complete Post, Click Here…
Canada’s euthanasia law faces intense scrutiny, and it’s not coming from the religious right.
On July 25th, 2019, Sean Tagert dragged his gaze across an on-screen keyboard, and with the help of an eye-reading communication system used by quadriplegics and people suffering from advanced ALS, letter-by-letter, he painstakingly wrote out a final farewell to his Facebook followers.
A debilitating 2017 cardiac arrest, coming after a 4-year battle with Lou Gherig’s Disease, left Sean unable to move, speak, or even eat. The farewell was neither measured nor resigned. It was not a goodbye left by a man at peace with what was to come. Sean was bitter.
“I’ve been quiet lately because I’m just done, worn-out. So last Friday, I officially submitted my medically assisted death paperwork, with lawyers and doctors, everything in proper order. It’s been over a month since I submitted my appeal to the Vancouver Coastal Health patient care quality department. They didn’t even respond,” he wrote. “Welcome to the great Canadian Healthcare system, people.”
It’s only natural for a person who chooses euthanasia, as a means to free themselves from pain, to be bitter. We plead, we beg whatever higher powers we might fancy for succor, we wonder why the seemingly astronomical chances landed the way they did, and our rage becomes inconsolable. But Sean wasn’t bitter about having to seek release; his acrimony was motivated by Vancouver Coastal Health, the local health authority, which had denied him full funding for his illness.
After Tagert’s condition worsened in 2017, he was placed on a ventilator, and the health authority recommended he receive 24-hour care. The problem: They were only willing to pay for 16 hours a day.
