How Canada’s Assisted Suicide Law Went Wrong
Two ways of looking at personal autonomy and what it could mean for us.
May 11th, 2023Author David Brooks looks at Canada’s ten-year record on physician-assisted suicide, or “medical aid in dying” as it is known there. Brooks examines the history of “personal autonomy” and its role in classical liberalism. He offers examples of both “autonomy-based” and “gift-based” ideas of life. “Many good ideas turn bad when taken to their extreme. And that’s true of liberalism. The freedom of choice that liberals celebrate can be turned into a rigid free-market ideology that enables the rich to concentrate economic power while the vulnerable are abandoned. The wild and creative modes of self-expression that liberals adore can turn into a narcissistic culture in which people worship themselves and neglect their neighbors.”
Read More: The Atlantic
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