In June 2016, the Canadian government passed Bill C-14 on medical assistance in dying, allowing for medically assisted suicide when ‘death has become reasonably foreseeable.’ While available for ill or physically disabled people at the... more
In June 2016, the Canadian government passed Bill C-14 on medical assistance in dying, allowing for medically assisted suicide when ‘death has become reasonably foreseeable.’ While available for ill or physically disabled people at the end-of-life, medically assisted suicide is denied in cases where people are perceived to have a mental disability and whose suffering is strictly emotional/psychological, like suicidal people. I argue that this results in constructing two classes of suicidal subjects by considering physically disabled or ill people as legitimate subjects who should receive assistance in dying and suicidal people as illegitimate subjects who must be kept alive through what I call the ‘injunction to live’ and ‘somatechnologies of life’. Analysing discourses on suicide targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and queer (LGBTQ) people in LGBTQ scholarship, I argue that, based on the silencing of suicidal subjects through the injunction to live, suicidal people constitute an oppressed group whose claims remain unintelligible within society, law, medical/psychiatric systems and LGBTQ scholarship. This essay calls for listening to suicidal people’s voices and developing an accountable response to their suffering and claims.
Baril, Alexandre (2017). “The Somatechnologies of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying Law: LGBTQ Discourses on Suicide and the Injunction to Live,” Special Issue: Sexuality in Canada, Somatechnics, 7 (2): 201-217.
Over two decades of Dutch experience with voluntary assisted dying can inform deliberations about the nature of a regulatory framework in Australian jurisdictions. This article considers three issues from this perspective: 1. Whether... more
Over two decades of Dutch experience with voluntary assisted dying can inform deliberations about the nature of a regulatory framework in Australian jurisdictions.
This article considers three issues from this perspective:
1. Whether the Government permit required in Victoria prior to providing voluntary assisted dying is defensible
2. Whether the Victorian preference for self-administration over practitioner administration is sound
3. The need for transparency about how voluntary assisted dying systems operate including research.
