A LIFE INTERRUPTED

Close your eyes and imagine that you are seventeen years old and you are enjoying a leisurely afternoon by the pool with your friends all around you. It’s hot so you decide to take a dip; you stand up and walk to the diving board, and just as you hit the water you hear a strange crunching noise in your head. The next thing you remember is waking up in the hospital not being able to feel anything below your neck. You have become paralyzed, the doctor tells you; you will never walk again and you have a less than three percent chance of ever feeling anything below your neck for the rest of your life. You will never be able to brush you hair, feed yourself, bathe, breathe on your own, you will always be dependent on others for your very survival. If you survive. And you are seventeen.

This extremely unfortunate event took place last week to a friend of my family. Her young daughter was behaving like any other normal teenager: relaxing, tanning, listening to music and showing off. Except that this would be the last day her daughter would ever feel normal. Instead of dances, parties and days by the pool, her life will now revolve around nurses, homecare and ramps.

There are so many reasons why I am angry about her situation, but the most important one (and perhaps the most hotly debated) is the fact that the Canadian government has been so slow to discuss laws regarding embryonic stem cell research. Now I have never been a supporter of Stephen Harper and his cronies but this most recent debacle has only heightened my disapproval. It proves to me that this man puts his religious beliefs before the lives of many of the people who voted for him.

The use of embryonic stem cells is one of many lines being researched, but it is the most hotly debated. The use of this research could help to eradicate Diabetes, all forms of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and would also heal spinal injuries thought to be irreversible, but the debate lies with the fact that some groups are vehemently against the cloning of cell clusters from an undeveloped organism. The research has sparked outrage from many religious and anti-abortion groups all over the world, these groups believe that scientists are harvesting human embryos just to kill them and are therefore guilty of murder. Well excuse me, but isn’t denying a living human being the right to medicine that will greatly improve his or her life just as bad? Is it not worse to watch a patient waste away from any number of diseases when you know you could increase their chances of leading a normal life?

I would love for Stephen Harper and his pals to visit one of these people. I would love to see him sit down at the bedside of a child with juvenile diabetes and explain to him or her that God says it’s wrong for him to help. I want him to tell the wife whose husband is dying of cancer that she should just give up hope and accept the inevitable, and then I want him to visit the bedside of that seventeen year old girl and tell her that he’s sorry she’ll never be able to walk again. It makes me sick to think that this man and his government have the answer to many of the world’s ailments but refuse to use it for fear of being judged. What they fail to understand is that they are already being judged in the court of human compassion, and they are guilty as charged.

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