
On Monday 29th July, I hosted a zoom session for celebrants and end-of-life doulas on the possible implications of assisted dying legislation. There is a Bill currently before the Scottish Parliament that would legalize a form of assisted dying. What might that mean for our work?
I assembled a panel of three experts. Naomi Richards is Director of the End of Life Studies Group at the University of Glasgow and has made a study of this topic. Sarah Farr is an end-of-life doula (or soul midwife) who works in Toronto, Canada. Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) is already legal in Canada and Sarah works with people who have requested this, so she brought first-hand experience to the workshop.
Finally, Kelly Oberle, like Sarah and myself, is a recent graduate of the Glasgow University MSc programme in End of Life Studies – the programme on which Naomi is a senior lecturer. So for the four of us, it felt a bit like a reunion!
Kelly, who also lives in Canada, interviewed families of people who had requested MAiD as part of her research. Like Sarah, she came to the meeting with personal experience of the issues raised by assisted dying.
We opened the workshop with Naomi’s presentation. She first talked about definitions and terms. What assisted dying is… and what it isn’t. She talked about the difference between euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. And she broadened this by looking at the different countries around the world that have legalized some form of assisted dying. That allowed her to talk about the different models that exist and she contrasted Oregon in the USA with the Benelux model. She compared eligibility and she discussed how the procedure is actually administered. (The euthanasia vs physician-assisted suicide route.) By doing this, she was able to speak about the Scottish Bill and how it would work. She also mentioned developments in the Isle of Man and Jersey as well as in Westminster.
Sarah then spoke about her work as a Canadian end-of-life doula. A large proportion of her clients have requested MAiD and so she has first-hand experience of the issues they face. Lack of information, gaps in provision, differences between provinces within Canada…. Sarah spoke about the real day-to-day challenges of this new way of dying. It made me realize that there would be such a need for the work of people like Sarah if Scotland legalized assisted dying. But would there be funding….?
Before I asked Kelly to speak about her research I played a little film. This was a 3-minute glimpse of a “living wake”. In it, a Canadian man in a hospital ward is shown surrounded by family and friends. We learn that this is his own “wake”. Friends and family give tributes and there is music and food and drink. At the end we read that the man died the following day at his own request. It’s an intense and incredibly moving video – whatever one’s own feelings about assisted dying. I have thought a lot about it and about the potential role for celebrants in these sorts of situations.
Kelly then spoke about her research. Her interviews were of people who had actually experienced a relative choose MAiD. They spoke of their feelings: of stigma, of guilt, of sadness. They often talked about a series of “lasts” – a last meal, a last walk, a last glass of wine. That will be true of anyone regardless of how they die. True retrospectively….but for people who choose assisted dying and their families, there are what Kelly described as “opportunities to be intentional”. Perhaps the most striking word that she found people using to describe the death of their friend or relative was “beautiful”.
There was a lot of information presented. And attendees had lots of questions. Some points of information. Many questions of the practicalities of how things work in Canada, how Sarah actually works with families, the “nitty-gritty” of how people negotiate the realities of MAiD.
People also expressed a willingness to learn about this in preparation for what may happen in Scotland, what is also happening in the wider British (and Irish) context. In particular there was a desire to continue to exchange information with Canada and a recognition of the immense store of experience that people like Sarah and Kelly have amassed.
I suggested that it would be good to keep in contact and to arrange another workshop in the future. If you’re a celebrant or doula and are interested in this issue (or if you want to chat about Glasgow University’s End of Life Studies Programme) and what it could mean for your work, please do contact me here.
Michael Hannah, Broughty Ferry, 30 July 2024