This week, the Minister for Health and responsible for Seniors questioned the growing use of medical assistance in dying, which is more in demand here in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada.
The minister would like to better understand why people do not choose to let themselves die in pain after several weeks, or even several months.
Nature, more pragmatic, is not so cruel: when an animal is sick, a predator takes care of putting an end to its suffering. Man having extricated himself from the cycle of nature, sitting alone at the top of the pyramid, without predators, he finds himself at the end of life alone, facing himself. A long, agonizing end to life. I am convinced that no animal would wish to experience an end as painful as that which man inflicts on himself.
It is ironic how, every time man tries to place himself beyond the rules of nature — and thus play a bit of God — he often ends up doing worse than before his intervention.
For example: the industrialization of food, the destruction of the environment, the role of seniors in our society. And the hypermedicalization of death. This interminable corridor, which prolongs the end of life beyond comprehension, cuts man far from himself, so much so that we no longer recognize him when he finally disappears: the ceremony will have closed coffin place.
All this and many other things were better at the time when man did not interfere, at the time when he did not place himself above, but was rather a participant in the order of things.
No one knows what God is, but we humans learn the hard way how difficult it is to replace Him. However, being in your place also means leaving before it becomes immeasurable suffering not only for the person who is about to free themselves from this pain, but also for their loved ones and, more generally, for the system of health and society.
To be in his place, in the end, is to anticipate when the wolf’s mouth will swallow us. And leave.