An anti-euthanasia advocate says a Health Canada survey on indigenous medical assistance in dying (MAiD) can never achieve the “cultural safety” it claims to reach for.Amanda Achtman offered an unfavorable review of the survey on her Substack “Dying to Meet you.” She entitled the article Euthanasia cannot be ‘culturally safe’ with the subtitle, Medical killing obviously undermines cultural preservation.Achtman quoted the survey to highlight what she called “the highly leading questions the Government is using in its attempt to solicit support for euthanasia from indigenous respondents.”These included,What supports should be in place to allow indigenous people to make decisions about MAiD?What supports should be in place to help someone preparing for their MAiD journey? What supports should be in place to help their families and caregivers?If you have supported or are supporting a loved one who has chosen MAiD, what was your experience with the process?The purported intent of the data collection was “cultural safety,” which the government defines as, “A way of being that is created by a trusting and respectful environment. Culturally safe practices are actions in colonized spaces where indigenous peoples, families and communities feel respected, included, welcomed and comfortable expressing all aspects of who they are as indigenous peoples.”The survey represented a new “ideological colonialism” to Achtman, reminding her of Cardinal Robert Sarah’s definition: “the imposition of a false morality and deceitful values.”“Premature death through medical killing is precisely this kind of imposition,” Achtman wrote.Statistics Canada reports, “Suicide rates among First Nations people, Métis and Inuit were significantly higher than the rate among non-indigenous people. The rate among First Nations people (24.3 deaths per 100,000 person-years at risk) was three times higher than the rate among non-indigenous people (8.0 deaths per 100,000 person-years at risk). Among First Nations people living on reserve, the rate was about twice as high as that among those living off reserve.”Achtman said such premature deaths, whether aided or not, don’t advance indigenous people.“Killing, whether through suicide or euthanasia, obviously undermines cultural preservation insofar as it destroys persons, the bearers of culture,” she wrote.“Despite having high rates of suicide, this is not a sign that it is an indigenous value. On the contrary, suicide is a sign of distress, trauma, and inadequate support to live.”Achtman argued Canada’s recent trend towards euthanasia will not be remembered kindly in future decades.“If Canada euthanizes indigenous persons, this will go down in national shame like the forced sterilizations and other dehumanizing eugenic practices perpetuated due to ‘deceitful values,’” she wrote.“I hope more indigenous persons will speak out against the Government’s euthanasia regime and the explicit targeting of First Nations support for it.”Achtman also produced a four-minute film about Eulalia Running Rabbit, a Blackfoot elder, to explore the issue. Running Rabbit recalled her difficult surgery in 2009 after a car accident left her second vertebrae broken.“What did I know about a halo? They made me a metal vest and the halo itself, not realizing that they were going to drill into my skull. And it was really heavy. I'll tell you the truth, I was defeated because who's going to take care of me? No, I didn't want to live.”Running Rabbit, who said she was grateful to be raised by her grandparents, found new inspiration when a nurse showed her a picture of her own newborn grandchild.“Go on living Eualia [I thought]. I wanted to be with my children, my grandchildren. And when I saw his picture, I thought, ‘A beautiful gift, so I'm just gonna keep praying.’ And so I did,” she recalled.“The doctor came back that one day, closed the curtains. And he knelt down beside me, holding my hand. And he said, ‘Eulalia, everything is healing perfect. I told you that you were going to be out of here in six months, but we're going to take that off in two months.’"“I said, ‘Oh my God,’ I was so grateful to know that I am gonna get out of here with my neck back.”Asked for her thoughts on assisted dying, Running Rabbit said she’d rather entrust herself to the Creator.“I don't think it's right for the government to push euthanasia on the nations. We really believe that the Creator is the One that's going to take us back. They call it happy hunting grounds…you people, you say heaven. So that's where we're going,” she explained.“You're not going to hear very many native people saying, ‘Yeah, okay, go ahead and inject me with that. I just want to die.’ No. We're like a storybook. Everyday we have to turn the page. That’s what my grandfather told me. He said, ‘You can’t go back…You can't erase your past.’ We have to live our life to the fullest. Take today as your last day. And if that's the day, that's the day and He'll take you home.'”
