Richard MacDonald on the Right to Control Your Death

When Richard MacDonald was practicing medicine in the ’50s and ’60s, people tended to die at home and “we hastened their deaths” by providing medications to ease their passing “and we were never criticized for it.” Nowadays things are radically different in Canada, officially at least. He says currently “you must die as you are told to die,” not at the time, location and manner of your choosing. He urges us, young and old to talk about dying to our loved ones so they know our wishes.

The right to die organization with which he is involved provides information to people on how to hasten their death, but not the means or the assistance to do so. He considers provision of this information to be a human and civil right, but law authorities who have cracked down on this activity have a different view.