Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1495665
5 Unity SUNDAY 26 MARCH 2023 becomes us Edgar Galea-Curmi, Lecturer, Department of Social Policy and Social Work Dr Vickie Gauci, Lecturer, Department of Disability Studies We share here some re- flections on euthanasia from the perspective of a disabled female ac- tivist and of a male social worker who shared the suffering and death of both parents and close relatives. Ours is not an academic or exhaus- tive thesis on euthanasia; rather, we voice the concerns of those who, like us, would not like to see euthanasia become a public policy and cultural reality in Malta. We understand euthanasia, including physician assisted suicide, medically assisted dying or death, or any other of its euphemisms, as the active interven- tion by medical professionals to bring about the death of a person. Essentially, euthanasia challenges one fundamental issue, the value of human life. It conceptualises human life as valuable if healthy, beautiful, useful and fruitful. Euthanasia wants us all to believe that "our lives are not worth living unless one is fit and pro- ductive". It represents the triumph of a consumeristic society, obsessed with autonomy, independence and produc- tivity, with no room for anyone con- sidered as a liability to society. It con- veys the message to persons who are on the margins of life that they are a burden to both society and to oneself. Proposing euthanasia as a public pol- icy solution is dangerous in more ways than one. Effectively, the introduction of euthanasia as a public policy enacts by statute the maxim that there are types and situations of life which have no value, and that the public and per- sonal good is enhanced by the termina- tion of such lives. Such a public policy clusters together those whom society deems as not satisfying the prerequi- sites of a healthy life, and proposes as a solution their accelerated purging. It discards a universal commitment to provide all that is required for so- ciety's most vulnerable members to experience the security and belonging that renews their sense of purpose and human flourishing till the end of life. Over the past half a century, disabled persons' reality has diverted the gaze from their individual impairment to the collective, societal and environ- mental barriers they face. They are dis- abled not only because of their biologi- cal impairment but more so because of the lack of opportunities and services that deny them living a full and mean- ingful life. We call this understanding the social model of disability, and it is an extremely useful paradigm to help us reflect upon the complex and sen- sitive dilemmas represented by eutha- nasia: Are we going to focus on the individual's medical situation and, if it cannot be fixed, support the elimi- nation of the individual? Or should we focus our attention on the state of our health and social care services, and do our utmost to create and distribute our resources in a manner that no one is compelled to see their life as having no value? Euthanasia quashes all disabled per- sons' efforts of the past 70 years to change the mentality towards their rights and the rights of other persons on the margins of life. It promotes a public policy that again reverts to short cut solutions … instead of offering to adapt your house, to provide you with personal assistance, with supportive technologies, as your needs change with the progression of your illness or impairment, you are offered a quick way out in the form of medical assis- tance to end your life. By embracing euthanasia, society chooses to make it easier for vulnerable and marginalised populations to kill themselves rather than engaging in actively seeking all that is necessary to accompany them as they experience the limits of human life, and to transform their vulnerabil- ity and suffering in an opportunity to experience the best of human compas- sion, connection, accompaniment and solidarity. A euthanasian culture is the antithe- sis of a caring society. We have heard numerous stories of euthanasia being offered for a multitude of reasons, including for fixing the trauma of a Dutch victim of sex abuse, to a Belgian person devastated by breaking with her partner, to a Canadian disabled person requesting personal assistance, and many others. It is considered as a solution to rationalising health and social services, and in harvesting or- gans from persons designated as brain death. It starts with individual stories, but it quickly opens wide the gates to the systematic elimination of lives who for some reason or other are deemed not fit to live. In the course of our work, we have been blessed with precious human beings who have taught us so much about what it is be human. Consid- er the story of a young man who ac- quired quadriplegia following a traffic accident. While being interviewed on television on the occasion of l-Istrina, to the question, "What would you like most?" he replied without batting an eyelid, "To live". Here is a young man, unable to do anything on his own ex- cept move from his neck upwards, who in the eyes of a euthanasian society in a prime candidate for euthanasia, claim- ing that his uppermost wish is to live. To live, however, with all the human and technological support he needs for a full and dignified life. And the moth- er of a young woman born with mul- tiple and complex impairments. Com- ing out of the Intensive Care Unit, her face lit up as she recounted how her daughter had overcome the danger of losing her life and would soon be coming back home. Here is this wom- an, whose life was wholly dedicated to caring for her daughter, ecstatic at the thought that her daughter was alive. In the eyes of a euthanasian culture, she would have been much better off had her daughter passed away, and uncon- cernedly offered medical assistance to get there. After all, she would have been able to take her life back, free from the 'burden' of caring for her se- verely disabled daughter. Two stories, one lesson we will never forget – who are we to decide on the value of any- body's life? And here lies the danger of euthana- sia for disabled people and other per- sons on the margins of life, especially for those who are unable to speak for themselves or who because of their cognitive impairments are unable to decide for themselves. Who is going to decide for them? Where do we draw the line? How are we going to decide whose lives are worth living and whose are not? And even when the claim is in support of those making fully autono- mous decisions, how autonomous can a decision be when it is made out of fear, when feeling lost or abandoned, when having no one to turn to, when suffering a mental illness, when life- saving medication is unaffordable, when comprehensive and flexible per- sonal assistance is not available, when the right to privacy is disregarded in all our residential homes, when commu- nity services are disjointed and sparse, when our psychiatric hospital and mental health services are found want- ing in key areas, when the lived experi- ence of the most vulnerable members of our society is nothing we can be proud of? We need to listen to what the people who will be most affected by the intro- duction of euthanasia have to say, be- fore we start going down this slippery slope. Euthanasia does not only involve health and social care professionals. It is not only about moral values. It is about what type of society we want to live and grow old in, the type of society we want to leave for our children and future generations. Instead of engaging the introduction of euthanasia, Maltese society needs to acknowledge the inadequacies and gaps in health, mental health and so- cial care services, and aggressively ensure that all our efforts go at ad- dressing suffering, access to hospice and palliative care, society's disabling barriers, and all that is necessary to give value and add life to, rather than assisting in the death of, society's most vulnerable members. against