New Zealander Claire Freeman was disabled in a car accident at the age of seventeen. She became suicidal. and advocated for legalizing assisted suicide in New Zealand. In Canada, we euphemistically call it "medical assistance in dying" — even if the person is not actually dying. (People used to call it murder.)
Today Claire is happy to be alive. She worked through her external and internal trauma and grief. When it comes to suicide (assisted or otherwise) communities must never acquiesce to people's desire to die when they have sunk beneath the turbulent waves of their circumstances.
The goal of any civilized society must be to encourage live with dignity and assisted for the despaired or defeated individual find that dignity. Nobody knows what tomorrow may bring, or what's around the next corner of life. It's that way for everybody and has been forever.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide advocates talk about "death with dignity." Dignity is not bestowed someone by injecting them with a lethal substance. Dying with dignity is the end result of having lived with dignity. Helping someone kill themselves is not dignity it is abandonment and exclusion from the human family—the ultimate exclusion of the tomb.
People with disabilities (often acquired as adults) need support and a community of concern that lifts their value, even if they have ceased to believe in their own value. We must ensure resources are available to them to overcome their trauma, loss and grief and eventually strike a new course for their lives within their new reality.
That's what a real community is. That's what a real community does.
MDP
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