Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

Like most good things in life, a good death is worth planning for. But many people don’t even talk about dying, never mind plan for it. Medical science is able to keep us alive longer and longer, but length of life does not necessarily relate to its quality. The end of life can be painful, degrading, lonely and not much fun. As in many other things that touch our lives in the 21st century, technology is ahead of ethics and compassion. Shouldn’t we have control over our own bodies? Why does “the government” decide when, where and how we die? A survey conducted by the Lethbridge College in 2010 found that two out of three people in southern Alberta were in favour of medically assisted suicide for terminally ill people with the proportion increasing to three out of four for the whole of Canada. Indeed, with statistics like that, why is the tail wagging the dog? The speaker will argue that Canadians should have the same rights as people living in Oregon, Washington, Montana or several European countries who no