Someone died today, someone I've known for many years. An important part of the gay rights movement in Canada during the seventies and eighties (I was also a part of that movement), someone who supported the rights of sex workers (he was a sex worker himself, as was I). He was also a professor of journalism in a Toronto university. I won't say his name, but I've given you enough to find him, if you care to.
He died with the help of a physician, under Canada's laws allowing Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), because his rapidly advancing Alzheimer's was robbing him of himself.
He died surrounded by friends, at peace, and comfortable with his choice.
I'm posting this not because he was important to the world (he was important to me), but because we've been discussing the issue of choice, of being "pro-life" or "pro-choice." I must honestly say, just now, while I'm feeling my own sadness at his passing, that this is an untenable, a stupid dichotomy.
I am both pro-life and pro-choice. What we never seem able to do is address the fact that if both are important, we need to find a way to navigate the sometimes painful dilemmas we are faced with. And because I am pro-choice, I am glad that he got his wish and died as he wanted to. And because I am pro-life, I celebrate the life he had, so long as he enjoyed partaking of it.
He died with the help of a physician, under Canada's laws allowing Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), because his rapidly advancing Alzheimer's was robbing him of himself.
He died surrounded by friends, at peace, and comfortable with his choice.
I'm posting this not because he was important to the world (he was important to me), but because we've been discussing the issue of choice, of being "pro-life" or "pro-choice." I must honestly say, just now, while I'm feeling my own sadness at his passing, that this is an untenable, a stupid dichotomy.
I am both pro-life and pro-choice. What we never seem able to do is address the fact that if both are important, we need to find a way to navigate the sometimes painful dilemmas we are faced with. And because I am pro-choice, I am glad that he got his wish and died as he wanted to. And because I am pro-life, I celebrate the life he had, so long as he enjoyed partaking of it.
