The 80-year-old author of the children’s book “Love You Forever,” which portrays the love a son has for his elderly mother, is reportedly weighing whether to eventually be euthanized by Canada’s deadly “medical aid in dying” (MAiD) program due to dementia and Parkinson’s diagnoses.
Robert Munsch told The New York Times Magazine earlier in September that he would choose euthanasia “when I start having real trouble talking and communicating. Then I’ll know.”
National Right to Life President Carol Tobias told FOX News Digital that Munsch’s consideration of euthanasia is “heartbreaking” and emphasized that every life has value.
“True compassion means walking with people through their pain, not abandoning them to a premature death,” she said. “Every life has inherent value, no matter the circumstances, and our society should be investing in excellent palliative care and support systems — not in policies that treat vulnerable people as if their lives are disposable.”
Catholic Canadian anti-MAID activist Amanda Achtman is also among the pro-life advocates decrying the news and calling for his life to be protected.
“To schedule his death at the hands of a physician would contradict the message of unconditional love that he shared all those years ago, a message that resonated with hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of children and parents,” Achtman wrote in a Sept. 17 op-ed in the Public Discourse.
Achtman explained that Munsch, an American-born Canadian author, wrote in “Love You Forever” about a mother who sings to her newborn son: “I’ll love you forever / I’ll like you for always / As long as I’m living / my baby you’ll be.” Her son grows and does things that frustrate his mother, but regardless of what he does, she sings the lullaby every night to him.
“Eventually, the mother grows old and sick and calls her son to visit her. She is so sick that she is unable to sing the lullaby that has been the lifelong expression of her love,” Achtman wrote. “And so her son sings it to her tenderly, revising the last lines to say, ‘As long as I’m living my Mommy you’ll be.’”
To euthanize Munsch contradicts this story’s powerful message, Achtman said, and it also would “contradict the support and understanding with which, thankfully, he was met throughout his life.” She explained that he received psychiatric help when he struggled with depression and suicide ideation, he joined a support group when he struggled with drugs and alcohol, and following the loss of two children, he and his wife adopted three.
“But now that he is elderly and asking for euthanasia, what is on offer? Why, only now, should there not be any antidote?” Achtman wrote.
Though the New York Times interview spotlighted Munsch’s comments on euthanasia, it was not the first time he has spoken publicly about considering it, according to Achtman. One of Munsch’s daughters said recently that Munsch received the diagnoses four years ago, and spoke about MAiD then.
Achtman noted that the consideration of euthanasia comes in part from a place of fear, and of concern for self-worth. She cited the most recent Times interview, where Munsch admits “his deepening insecurities over having dementia, expressing his fear about becoming ‘a turnip’ or ‘a lump.’ The request for medical assistance in dying (MAiD) is a cry of the heart concerning self-worth and lovability.”
“Love You Forever” was written from a deeply personal place for Munsch. According to Achtman, Munsch revealed in his website biography that he wrote the book as a memorial for his two stillborn children.
“It was these gifts that completely transformed him, that made him a father, that broke open his heart to that radical Love You Forever kind of love,” Achtman wrote. “These two children who never took a breath in this life have had an incalculably positive impact on the world by inspiring Munsch to write his book and encouraging readers to love one another, despite failures and weaknesses, through every season of life.”
Like his children, Munsch has inherent dignity that no diagnosis can change, Achtman added.
“In the universality of Robert Munsch’s fears about dementia, we see the need to propose something other than death,” she wrote. “It is time for someone else to continue the story with him still in it. Just as in the story, he needs someone to pick him up and rock him ‘back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.’ Singing over him: ‘I’ll love you forever / I’ll like you for always / As long as I’m living / My [dear one] you’ll be.’”
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