Did you see in your newsfeed, or even if you are still one of those people who still read newspapers, something which caught just about everybody’s attention? A Canadian man, Kenneth Law, has made a business of selling a suicide compound by mail to hundreds of people worldwide. It’s a legal substance, but not one that many would know was lethal if taken in the “right way” and in the right amounts. Tragically many young people (as well as older) have died because of this man.

Mr. Law’s mailings took place from our country. He has been charged with aiding and abetting suicide. You may be surprised at this since thousands of people are being killed by assisted suicide in our country each year, but this law is still in the books. Obviously, this exception to the law is big enough to drive a Mack truck through it.

Every law has certain tensions in that no law can cover every kind of possible scenario and therefore we need judges to interpret these laws, but it must be said that the tensions within the law on assisting suicide are such that it makes the very concept of the law absurd. Who knows if Kenneth Law counselled them to commit suicide? If so, then he is very much like those people who are counselling the sick in palliative care to commit suicide. Did his victims ask to be killed? Did he only prey upon the vulnerable? It is almost by definition that those people who are dying, in pain, isolated, alone or suffering from mental illness are vulnerable. To some degree, it can be said that those medical professionals and others who are counseling them to commit suicide or to be killed are preying upon them.

As well, it is odd to think that in a world that is obsessed with personal autonomy and personal decision-making that we can, with a straight face, say that these poor people who committed suicide with Mr. Law’s drugs are themselves not acting with full autonomy. Autonomy itself is a nebulous concept. This is the craziness that we see in so many parts of the application of the medical aid in dying scenarios and we must call it for what it is for it is - a craziness! On the one hand, we have suicide prevention hotlines and then on the other, we trust in precarious and easily overlooked guidelines on how to commit suicide or to be killed by doctors.

It is not enough to just outline the absurdities of our current laws on death and killing. I would suggest to all reading this that we have a responsibility to instruct and teach. We need to be working on remote preparation - that is to prepare our people to really know the Church’s teachings on death and dying, on end-of-life decisions, and on the nature of suffering. This can be done in a variety of ways, but I would strongly recommend not just preaching but also accessing the various new programs. People learn in a variety of ways.

I would highly recommend Horizons of Hope from the Canadian Catholic Conference of Bishops which in several modules walks people through video and print materials in small groups (though it can be done as an individual as well) to look at our teaching and its application and pastoral responses. Two other organizations that have been working on programs are the Christian Medical and Dental Society with their new program which will be available shortly and Life Canada’s work on palliative care.

We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Many people are working in these areas and there is good material to be had. We need to share it, use it, promote it and engage with the material so that our own people may be prepared in this our split mind society. There is no such thing as a split conscience.

Fr. Tom Lynch (PFLC National President)

For more information regarding Horizons of Hope visit the CCCB website at cccb.ca/faith-moral-issues/suffering-and-end-of-life/