Furthermore, while my disability has presented me with challenges, such as the inability to hand write, it wasn’t as overwhelming as the doctors had predicted. When I look back, I don’t dwell on my disability. Rather, I recall how lucky I am to be alive.

Sadly, it appears that advocates of legal euthanasia feel that life’s a curse and that I am better off dead.

Bill C-384, which is expected to come to a vote after Parliament reconvenes in March, will allow a person to euthanize or assist in the suicide of patients experiencing “severe physical or mental pain,” provided those patients submit two written requests for euthanasia while appearing to be lucid.  

But legalizing euthanasia will allow people, who feel that suffering or a disability make life worthless, to foist death upon the young and the disabled.

Unfortunately, not only is this situation possible, it’s already happening in some countries. In the Netherlands,  where euthanasia is legal, doctors are killing newborns when an infant’s suffering is as minor as having spina bifida, a correctable medical condition.

The Netherlands is also deciding whether it should be legal to euthanize newborns based upon “foreseeable suffering.” In other words, they’re debating whether it’s OK or not to kill a living baby if convinced the baby will have a meaningless life.

Some euthanasia advocates, most notably Australian bioethicist Peter Singer, support this notion. Singer says he wouldn’t hesitate to kill an infant if he felt it was “in the best interests of the infant and the family.” Considering that I experienced great pain when I was born it’s probable that Singer would have had the neonatal version of me euthanized.

My disability is a part of me, but I don’t feel that it’s a measure of my worth or that it detracts from my human dignity.

The same goes for everyone else. One of the best examples of how a disabled person has human worth is the now deceased Christopher Reeve. Despite being paralysed from the neck down after an accident, the man who portrayed Superman on the big screen did not see his life as “worthless.” Rather, he said his accident gave his life new meaning. He rose from the ashes as an advocate for those with spinal cord injuries. He’s proof that one’s suffering or physical capabilities do not determine human worth.

Far from harming just the old, euthanasia harms everyone regardless of age, capability or social status. I pray Bill C-384 will be defeated. The lives of the old, the young and the weak literally depend on it.

(Mair, 19, is a journalism student at Carleton University in Ottawa.)