A 20-year-old man from Fort St. John, BC, is choosing a medically assisted death — a practice a McGill ethics professor says will keep expanding..Eric Coulam’s problems began in 2013 shortly after his mother killed herself. What began as stomach pains became a blockage in his digestive tract, a rupture, and sepsis..Since then, Coulam has lost his small intestine, and suffers with pancreatitis, liver, and kidney disease, and chronic pain. Visits to numerous doctors and months in hospitals have not offered a diagnosis for his gastrointestinal problems..Now he is choosing a medically assisted death..It’s hard for his grandmother Donna Suski to take. Coulam used to live with her in Vernon, BC..“I lost his mom. And now I’ll be losing him,” Stucki told the National Post through tears. “We had such a bond. We really enjoyed each other’s company.”.Coulam considered medical assistance in dying (MAiD) after someone near him in a Kelowna hospital received it. He asked his doctor about it and signed up..“I sometimes lay there at night and get sad sometimes, but for the most part, I’m waiting for the day because I’m in lots of pain all the time. I’m on many meds just to be comfortable for a few hours,” Coulam told EnergeticCity.ca, an online publication in Fort St. John..Coulam set up a Facebook group called Eric’s Army with the help childhood friend Brittney Yawney. Yawney moderates the page and ensures no one criticizes his decision to die..“Unless you’ve walked a day in Eric’s shoes, nobody gets a say except for Eric,” she said..“Eric knows best, it’s his life and his body and we all need to respect the decision he’s made because none of us know how much he has gone through,” Yawney wrote in a post to the Facebook group..Yawney asked Coulam if his condition would kill him apart from MAiD. .“Hell no,” Coulam said. “I am way too much of a fighter to ever go on my own. I’m choosing this because I want to go out when I choose, not because some disease is taking me out.”.Coulam has not chosen his day to die, but did have a celebration of his life on May 21 at his father’s home. Family and friends arrived, enjoying food and drinks donated by local businesses while a band played on..“Good people, good food, good weather, good music … couldn’t ask for more. We love you Eric,” wrote one member on the Eric’s Army page..Neither Yawney nor Suski have been able to contact Coulam in recent weeks..“I think he’s holding back a little bit,” said Suski. “I think he’s trying to prepare us for what’s going to happen.”.Douglas Farrow, a professor of theology and ethics at McGill University, spoke to the Western Standard about euthanasia without knowledge of Coulam’s case. Farrow says euthanasia will keep expanding in its scope because the belief that life is sacred and God-given has been lost..“The presupposition is … that we are possessors of our lives in such a way as to have the right to … take charge of our own death, and so to assert that our lives are not a gift, not a matter of something entrusted to us by a giver, by the Creator, but something that simply belongs to us outright,” Farrow explained..“We have changed our notion of the sanctity of life to mean identification of ourselves as somehow sacred. So my decisions about myself are sacred — period. So if I choose to be of a different gender, or if I choose not to exist at all, that choice is sacred.”.The notion that administering death is compassionate seems illogical to Farrow..“We dress it up as compassion in the sense that this person is perhaps suffering now, expects to suffer later at any rate, and if we care about them, we will alleviate their suffering as quickly and as effectively as we can. And we call that compassion. But of course, the logic of that compassion is relatively simple. You can eliminate anyone's suffering altogether and immediately, simply by killing them.”
A 20-year-old man from Fort St. John, BC, is choosing a medically assisted death — a practice a McGill ethics professor says will keep expanding..Eric Coulam’s problems began in 2013 shortly after his mother killed herself. What began as stomach pains became a blockage in his digestive tract, a rupture, and sepsis..Since then, Coulam has lost his small intestine, and suffers with pancreatitis, liver, and kidney disease, and chronic pain. Visits to numerous doctors and months in hospitals have not offered a diagnosis for his gastrointestinal problems..Now he is choosing a medically assisted death..It’s hard for his grandmother Donna Suski to take. Coulam used to live with her in Vernon, BC..“I lost his mom. And now I’ll be losing him,” Stucki told the National Post through tears. “We had such a bond. We really enjoyed each other’s company.”.Coulam considered medical assistance in dying (MAiD) after someone near him in a Kelowna hospital received it. He asked his doctor about it and signed up..“I sometimes lay there at night and get sad sometimes, but for the most part, I’m waiting for the day because I’m in lots of pain all the time. I’m on many meds just to be comfortable for a few hours,” Coulam told EnergeticCity.ca, an online publication in Fort St. John..Coulam set up a Facebook group called Eric’s Army with the help childhood friend Brittney Yawney. Yawney moderates the page and ensures no one criticizes his decision to die..“Unless you’ve walked a day in Eric’s shoes, nobody gets a say except for Eric,” she said..“Eric knows best, it’s his life and his body and we all need to respect the decision he’s made because none of us know how much he has gone through,” Yawney wrote in a post to the Facebook group..Yawney asked Coulam if his condition would kill him apart from MAiD. .“Hell no,” Coulam said. “I am way too much of a fighter to ever go on my own. I’m choosing this because I want to go out when I choose, not because some disease is taking me out.”.Coulam has not chosen his day to die, but did have a celebration of his life on May 21 at his father’s home. Family and friends arrived, enjoying food and drinks donated by local businesses while a band played on..“Good people, good food, good weather, good music … couldn’t ask for more. We love you Eric,” wrote one member on the Eric’s Army page..Neither Yawney nor Suski have been able to contact Coulam in recent weeks..“I think he’s holding back a little bit,” said Suski. “I think he’s trying to prepare us for what’s going to happen.”.Douglas Farrow, a professor of theology and ethics at McGill University, spoke to the Western Standard about euthanasia without knowledge of Coulam’s case. Farrow says euthanasia will keep expanding in its scope because the belief that life is sacred and God-given has been lost..“The presupposition is … that we are possessors of our lives in such a way as to have the right to … take charge of our own death, and so to assert that our lives are not a gift, not a matter of something entrusted to us by a giver, by the Creator, but something that simply belongs to us outright,” Farrow explained..“We have changed our notion of the sanctity of life to mean identification of ourselves as somehow sacred. So my decisions about myself are sacred — period. So if I choose to be of a different gender, or if I choose not to exist at all, that choice is sacred.”.The notion that administering death is compassionate seems illogical to Farrow..“We dress it up as compassion in the sense that this person is perhaps suffering now, expects to suffer later at any rate, and if we care about them, we will alleviate their suffering as quickly and as effectively as we can. And we call that compassion. But of course, the logic of that compassion is relatively simple. You can eliminate anyone's suffering altogether and immediately, simply by killing them.”
