Dr. Maher, in the bioethics literature, there is a history of end-of-life care in a biomedical context. Remember that we have moved from futile medical treatment to the recognition of the right to die. Indeed, before palliative care, the recognition of the right to die was called passive euthanasia, and we heard virtually the same arguments regarding passive euthanasia as those I am hearing tonight.
We have thus moved from medical paternalism, which imposed futile medical treatment, to the recognition of a patient’s right to die through palliative care. We have therefore recognized that patients can avail themselves of comfort care, and, a little later, we arrived at medical assistance in dying, respecting the autonomy that you wish to restore to your patients. That is indeed the goal. A patient can decide on their own death in a situation of end-of-life care, isn’t that right? I hope you support that.
This respect for the autonomy and self-determination of the person, of the suffering patient, has led to what we now call good medical practices. I imagine you are not opposed to these good medical practices, which consist in recognizing the refusal of life-sustaining treatment and the cessation or withholding of treatment when it becomes futile.
I would like to know where you stand on the issue of end-of-life care and the medical paternalism you seem to exhibit—perhaps justifiably—in the field of psychiatry.