The simple sound of a ticking clock now haunts Donna-Lynn Ramler. She hears the sound even when no clocks are around.
“For the first few days, after (my husband) died. I ripped the house apart looking for ticking. I ripped the house apart!”
The sound brings Ramler back to the most painful period of her life. Last summer, she spent 11 excruciating days and nights holding the hand of her young husband as he lay dying. Although Aaron Ramler was in hospice with late-stage cancer, it wasn’t the tumour in his brain or the disease throughout his spine that was causing his death. Aaron Ramler was dying because he refused to eat or drink.
“It was torture. Watching someone starve to death is hard work, especially when they’ve asked you not to stop them,” Donna-Lynn Ramler said.
The 32-year-old father of two knew he was going to die. He had battled cancer for eight years and had enjoyed a five-year-long remission, but when the disease returned and spread, his family knew his time had come. He entered a Calgary hospice in spring 2015, but after four months, his wife says, Ramler had had enough.
“He couldn’t move and he couldn’t hear and he couldn’t see. He outwardly said, ‘I am done living, this is enough. I’ve struggled enough.'”
Physician-assisted suicide is illegal in Canada – at least for now – and after consulting a lawyer, the Ramlers learned they had two choices. Aaron Ramler could wait in hospice for what his doctors estimated would be another four months, or he could stop eating and drinking.
The advocacy group Dying with Dignity believes Canadians should have other options.
“Even in hospice, where people’s pain is managed very well and they get a lot of comfort and support, some people linger longer than they wish to,” June Churchill, a member of Dying with Dignity’s Calgary chapter, said.
WATCH: The legal fight to overturn Canada’s law against physician assisted suicide began more than 20 years ago. Heather Yourex-West takes a look back at how changes to laws around the world have influenced where Canada is today.
Last February, in a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed. Its ruling means that after Feb. 6, 2016, patients like Aaron Ramler will be able to choose to die sooner with the help of a medical doctor. The ruling has been met with a great deal of opposition, but for Donna-Lynn Ramler, it’s been a source of comfort.
“I don’t want other families to go through the things we went through. Instead of (my children) being able to jump on the bed and say a nice beautiful goodbye to dad, and dad just goes peacefully, it was 11 days of hell. Those are the last memories we have of my husband.”
Canada’s law against physician-assisted suicide was first challenged in 1993 by Sue Rodriquez, a British Columbia woman suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. In that challenge, the law was upheld in a five to four ruling, but in the decades since, physician-assisted suicide has become legal in a number of other places around the world.
Switzerland was the first to allow the practice in 1942. In 2002, it also became legal in the Netherlands and Belgium, with Luxembourg following suit in 2009. Physician-assisted suicide is not legal across the United States, but five states do allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication. Those states are Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana and New Mexico.
READ MORE: How doctor-assisted dying works in Oregon
In 2014, Quebec’s National Assembly also passed right to die legislation. The law was scheduled to take effect Dec. 10, 2015, but last week a Quebec Superior Court judge suspended the law, saying some sections contradict the Criminal Code of Canada. The province plans to appeal.
This new climate set the stage for Canada’s second constitutional challenge in early 2015, and on Feb. 6, all nine Supreme Court justices voted to strike down Canada’s law. The ruling gave the government 12 months to change the Criminal Code.
Last week, Canada’s attorney general asked the Supreme Court for a six-month extension on the deadline so Parliament could have more time to consider all possible responses to the decision.
In Part II of “Life and Death Decisions,” Heather Yourex-West looks at why this issue is so divisive in Canada, and why some say better palliative care is all that’s needed to ensure the dying are able to spend their final days with comfort and dignity.
Comments