Re: Euthanasia

Apr 29, 2015

I celebrate the court's decision on assisted suicide because it gives people back some rights over their own body and mind. Society often misuses energy trying fruitlessly to restrict what people do with their own body.

I'm grateful that we are moving towards being responsible for our own bodies. The strong societal urge to control others' bodies misuses the wonderful energy of life. We've seen this with slavery, unequal voting rights, and religious domination, just to name a few examples. We used to believe kings and priests knew best. Nowadays we allow corporations and the medical establishment to override our own ideas on how to live in our bodies.

Isn't it an abdication of responsibility to believe and accept that someone else knows best what is good for you? Perhaps it is the idea of original sin that prevents people from seeing that they are inherently good and capable. We can certainly be ugly, violent creatures when afraid, but we are not born bad.

Is it not misdirected to criminalize people for actions that hurt no one else? I'm thinking of drug use for example. If a doctor recommends it, it's o.k. If you get the same drug elsewhere, it's a crime.

As a society, we would rather spend energy on creating prisons, a criminal class, a source of income for war coffers rather than using that energy/money to educate, elevate and help people understand themselves and their bodies.

To let someone else dictate what you do with your own body is a kind of refusal to mature. I'm of the generation whose mothers were advised to smoke after giving birth. I was fed carnation evaporated milk. The pressure was on to get their bodies “looking” good. They allowed themselves to believe that they were not good enough. I'm not saying doctors and corporations are always wrong. I'm saying we can ask and get advice and make our own judgements. It might even be the whole reason for living.

I dream of a government there to educate and inform and protect; elevate rather than subjugate. I dream of energy used to expand and explore, rather than promote fear.

We are energy made solid to experience this life. The shell we live in will expire. Energy can't be destroyed. The soul lives on. We can live and die without fear.

Jo-Anne D'Aoust