FREE PUBLIC EVENT: The Hamilton Science Faith Forum and the CSCA present a lecture by James Peterson (Professor of Christian Ethics, Roanoke College), who served as CSCA president from 2011 to 2013.
Is MAiD Making a Bed We Want to Sleep In?
We probably all hope for the option of some medical aid in dying, particularly pain relief as needed at our death, or that of loved ones. Hospice exists for example to support us through the dying process with comfort, clarity, and company. In contrast, MAiD (Medical Aid in Dying legislation), is used as a euphemism for the particular practice of physician assisted suicide (PAS). PAS as first legalized in Oregon in 1997, is practiced there with ten required guardrails. Canadian MAiD in 2016, and then with the changes of C-7 in 2020, is proceeding with far fewer safeguards. Is that for the better or worse now, and in the coming days?
James C. Peterson was the president of the Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation (2011-2013) while holding the endowed R. A. Hope Chair in Ethics to teach at both the Medical School and Divinity College of McMaster University, and then the endowed Schumann Chair to teach at Roanoke College and the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine. He is an ordained minister prepared in Clinical Pastoral Education, has researched molecular and clinical genetics on grant from NIH, and earned his PhD in religious and philosophical ethics from the University of Virginia. He has served on the Board of a Hospice, is currently the ethicist for the LewisGale Medical Center (consulting on policy, education, and clinical cases), serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (a peer reviewed journal celebrating its 75th year), and was recently called to give expert testimony at the National Academies of Science and Medicine. The American Scientific Affiliation, and the International Society for Science and Religion, have both elected him as a Fellow.