Medically-assisted suicide finally may be legalized in Canada, following a unanimous Supreme Court ruling last September that Canadian adults have a right to end their lives with the help of physicians.
With this historic verdict, Canada’s parliament may yet enact legislation allowing terminally ill Canadians to end their lives in dignity.
Kathy Wardle, I’m certain, would have been immensely pleased by the news.
A Toronto real estate agent suffering from chronic and uncontrollable pain, she ended her life on March 17, 2015 in Switzerland, assisted by a Swiss organization.
Wardle is the subject of John Thornton’s thoughtful and moving documentary, My Life, My Choice: Dying With Dignity, which will be broadcast by Vision TV on March 14 at 10 p.m.
Thornton, Wardle’s childhood friend, made the film after he learned of her plan. Over a period of three weeks, he spent innumerable hours with Wardle, who’s usually seen lying uncomfortably in bed trying to manage her constant pain.
As Thornton describes Wardle, she was a vivacious and vibrant woman brimming with joie de vivre. A member of York University’s first graduating class, she was a diplomat’s wife and a dog lover.
A decade ago, she was afflicted by severe back and knee problems. She underwent surgery, but to no avail. Various treatments proved useless, and pain relief medication was ineffective. Most patients respond well to treatment, Wardle’s physician says. Tragically, she did not.
She had trouble breathing. She was assailed by anxiety attacks. She was exhausted by the prospect of pain. In short, she was robbed of her quality of life.
“It’s debilitating,” she says. “It gets worse week by week.”
Contemplating suicide, she thought of jumping off a bridge.
Wardle’s sister, Lesley Forrester, says she can no longer take the pain. “There’s no magic bullet for her.”
Wardle doesn’t want to die, but can’t live in perpetual pain, fear and anxiety. She wants a dignified way out of her nightmare. “This should be easily available to me,” she says.
In the last part of the film, Wardle, accompanied by her sister and two friends, flies to Zurich for her destiny with death at a Swiss clinic. She seems at peace before she’s due to drink a lethal dose of barbiturates.
She wonders whether her death will inject some meaning into the current debate in Canada on doctor-assisted dying. My Life, My Choice, I would hasten to say, may well have an impact on this important and long overdue debate.