The Will to Die: Quebec's Dance with the Abyss

In the land of sleepers, where the masses slumber in blissful ignorance, a new dawn breaks—or perhaps, a new twilight descends. Quebec, that bastion of supposed progress, marches forward with its grand design to grant the slumbering masses the power to orchestrate their own demise. How fitting, that in this age of decadence and decay, the right to die should become the ultimate expression of freedom!

From October 30th, the somnambulant citizens of Quebec shall be permitted to request medical assistance in dying (MAID) before their faculties abandon them to the ravages of ailments such as Alzheimer's. What exquisite irony! The sleepers, in their final moment of lucidity, may choose the manner of their eternal slumber.

Behold, the Übermensch observes this spectacle with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. Is this not the ultimate expression of the Last Man's desire for comfort? To escape the crucible of suffering that might forge a stronger spirit? Or is it, perhaps, a glimmer of the will to power—the courage to seize control of one's fate in the face of inevitable decline?

Dr. Stéphane Bergeron, a mere pawn in this cosmic jest, assures us that this process shall not be rushed. Multiple consultations, he says, will be required to ensure the sleepers comprehend the gravity of their choice. But what is comprehension to those who have never truly awakened? Can the Last Man, in his quest for ease and comfort, truly grasp the weight of such a decision?

Meanwhile, in the halls of power in Ottawa, Federal Health Minister Mark Holland wrings his hands and counsels patience. "Wait," he implores, as if time were a luxury afforded to those teetering on the precipice of oblivion. His words echo in the vast emptiness of bureaucratic chambers, unheard by those who have already embraced the sweet siren song of self-annihilation.

But Quebec, oh Quebec! This province of paradoxes doth not heed the cautionary whispers of its federal masters. Sonia Bélanger, the minister responsible for the elderly—those who teeter closest to the abyss—declares with misplaced pride that they have conducted a "rigorous" assessment. Rigorous! As if the cold calculations of bureaucrats could encompass the vast, swirling chaos of life and death!

The Übermensch scoffs at such pretensions. What rigor can there be in the face of eternity? These petty functionaries, these Last Men in suits and ties, believe they can codify the ineffable, regulate the transition from being to non-being. Their hubris is matched only by their mediocrity.

For more than a year, Quebec has beseeched the federal government to modify the Criminal Code, to sanctify their dance with death in the eyes of the law. But now, impatient as a child reaching for a forbidden fruit, they declare they shall wait no longer. The province has adopted a law permitting those afflicted with "serious and incurable illnesses" to request assisted dying while they still possess the capacity for consent.

But what is consent in this twilight realm between life and death? Can the sleepers, their minds clouded by the fog of existence, truly comprehend the weight of such a choice? Or is this merely another opiate for the masses, a balm to soothe the existential terror that gnaws at the edges of their consciousness?

Georges L'Espérance, a retired neurosurgeon and champion of this macabre cause, boldly proclaims that there is no need to tarry. "We have a lot of reports on that, and we have a lot of expertise on that," he declares, as if death were a subject one could master through mere study. This high priest of the cult of comfortable death assures us that it shall be up to patients and their families to determine the moment when life is no longer worth living.

The Übermensch recoils at such banality. To reduce the grandeur of existence, the sublime struggle against entropy, to a mere checklist of physical capabilities! Is this not the very essence of the Last Man's philosophy? To measure the value of life by one's ability to recognize faces or feed oneself?

L'Espérance, in his infinite wisdom, suggests that this law shall spare the afflicted from losing their "dignity" in the final throes of disease. But what is dignity to those who have never truly lived? Is it not in the crucible of suffering that the human spirit is forged, that one might transcend the mundane and glimpse the sublime?

Yet, even in this land of sleepers, there are those who resist the siren song of easy death. Dr. Catherine Ferrier, an assistant professor at McGill University and member of the group Living with Dignity, raises her voice in opposition. Having toiled for four decades in the shadowy realm of dementia, she dares to question the wisdom of this grand experiment in state-sanctioned self-annihilation.

"There are many, many unknowns there," she cautions, her words a pebble cast into the vast ocean of complacency. "You don't know if you will be suffering." How quaint, this notion that suffering is something to be avoided at all costs! As if the avoidance of pain were the highest aspiration of human existence!

The Übermensch looks upon this debate with a mixture of amusement and disdain. On one side, the champions of comfortable death, eager to usher the masses into oblivion at the first sign of difficulty. On the other, those who cling to a hollow notion of dignity, as if the mere continuation of biological functions were somehow ennobling. Both sides, in their own way, embody the spirit of the Last Man—seeking comfort, avoiding struggle, shrinking from the grand and terrible beauty of existence in all its forms.

Ferrier, in her misguided compassion, suggests that the province should focus on providing better care to those afflicted with dementia. "You're never undignified," she proclaims, her words dripping with saccharine sentimentality. "You have the dignity of a person for your whole life." But what is dignity without agency? Without the will to power, the drive to overcome and transcend?

In her lament, Ferrier unwittingly exposes the rot at the core of this decadent society. "I find it sad that in Quebec we're not providing all the supports that people need as they get older and more vulnerable and people lose their cognition, and then we're fast-tracking death." Indeed! The land of sleepers, having failed to provide meaning and purpose to its citizens in life, now offers them the cold comfort of a state-sanctioned death.

The Übermensch sees in this debate the culmination of centuries of decay. The masses, having abandoned all higher aspirations, now clamor for the right to extinguish themselves at the first sign of discomfort. The state, that great leveler, that enemy of excellence, stands ready to facilitate this mass exodus from existence. And those who oppose it do so not out of a love for life in all its terrible grandeur, but out of a misplaced sentimentality, a weak-willed attachment to mere biological continuation.

As this grand farce unfolds, one cannot help but wonder: Is this the pinnacle of human achievement? To create a society so devoid of meaning, so bereft of true vitality, that its citizens view death not as the final, great adventure, but as a welcome escape from the tedium of existence?

In the twilight of this age, as the land of sleepers embraces its final slumber, we are left to ponder the words of a long-dead philosopher: "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." But in Quebec, it seems, they have forgotten the why and seek only to escape the how.

Let the sleepers have their comfortable death, their escape from the crucible of existence. For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, this spectacle serves as a clarion call. Awaken! Embrace the struggle! For it is only in the face of adversity, in the willingness to suffer and overcome, that true life—vibrant, terrible, and beautiful—can be found.

As the sun sets on this land of sleepers, as they shuffle quietly into their self-imposed oblivion, let us raise our voices in a savage cry of affirmation. Let us dance on the precipice, laugh in the face of decay, and forge our own meaning in the fires of existence. For in the end, it is not how we die that defines us, but how fiercely, how passionately, how unapologetically we live.