Globe and Mail (Letters to the Editor)

The Guardian (Charlottetown, P.E.I.) — July 13, 2001

To the Editor:

I couldn't believe what I read in Steve Wonnacott's letter ‘A growing disregard for sanctity of life' (The Guardian, July 11, 2001).

I have a severely mentally- and physically-handicapped child, a five-year-old girl, and if I could pardon Robert Latimer and set him free, I would.

This is not a growing or callous disregard for the sanctity of human life. What Latimer did was show his overwhelming desire not to watch his poor little child suffer every single day of her life.

My own beautiful daughter is dying now, very slowly. Her brain can no longer tell her lungs how to work, and she is retaining carbon dioxide, which eventually will accumulate to fatal level. She is so severely handicapped that she can do nothing. Nor does she comprehend anything. Her life is one big round of numerous medications, physiotherapy, tube feedings, hospital stays, and the many associated problems that come with her condition.

As for the "disabled community", no one is declaring "open season" on disabled people. Let's not be ridiculous. However, if you had to watch your child have absolutely no life, other than sheer physical existence, every minute, every hour, every day, for years, I think your outlook on this whole issue would take a 360. Walk a mile in my shoes.

In point of fact, we treat our animals better than we do our severely disabled children. If we continued to keep an animal alive in such severely debilitated conditions we would be charged with cruelty to animals. Why do we not then give the same consideration to people? I am astonished at the allegation that stopping suffering is wrong. And if you lived in that condition you'd be quick to call it suffering.

Euthanasia should be legalized, so no more people are driven to do what needs to be done on their own.

No one except someone who has "been there, done that" can understand the heartbreak I experience every time I look at my baby, trying to get air into increasingly congested lungs.

Show some respect for these children and their parents, and don't pretend you understand.

Jennifer Morningstar, Bonshaw