Push to legalize euthanasia gains strength
LONDON, ON—Anti-euthanasia advocates worry that if a death-with-dignity bill now before the Quebec National Assembly becomes law, it could encourage other provinces to bring in similar legislation.
"Many provinces are having a very difficult time covering the cost of healthcare, and some of them would see this as a possible savings," says Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. "The premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, responded to Quebec considering legalizing euthanasia very positively."
Bill 52 sets out rules that would allow doctors to hasten the deaths of patients suffering from an incurable disease who are in "constant and unbearable" pain without fear of criminal prosecution. The patients must be adults capable of giving consent.
Yet critics say the bill is full of dangerous loopholes and omissions.
"They're telling you it's just for terminally ill people who are nearing death," says Schadenberg. "Yet when you read the definitions, it's for terminally ill people and chronically ill people and disabled people."
"It would create a hodge-podge of policies, practices and procedures, yet includes few safeguards and very little oversight," says Amy Hasbrouck, director of Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet, in an e-mail. Formed in January, the group is a project of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities.
Hasbrouck cites the example—based, she says, on a real person—of a woman who has already lost part of one leg to diabetes, and needs to have her other foot amputated due to an infection. "This would be considered a worsening of her serious and incurable condition, rendering her eligible for euthanasia under Bill 52."
If passed, the law is likely to face a constitutional challenge that will eventually end up before the Supreme Court of Canada.
Also likely heading there is a constitutional challenge to Canada's anti-euthanasia law brought by ALS sufferer Gloria Taylor. In June, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lynn Smith struck down the law and called for the limited legalization of euthanasia in Canada.
In her ruling, Smith says that Taylor's request for physician-assisted death was "non-ambivalent"—a claim that James Read, executive director of The Salvation Army Ethics Centre in Winnipeg, considers unlikely.
"The Apostle Paul," says Read, "was much more in tune with human reality. He says, 'I don't know. Should I want to die or should I want to live? It would be better to be with the Lord, but I think He wants me to stay here.' You don't come to the end of a human life, at least if you are still competent, completely non-ambivalent."
"Once again it's very concerning," says Schadenberg, "because she took it upon herself to reverse many other decisions that have happened in Canada."
Yet Canada's doctors appear unlikely to drop their opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide any time soon. At the Canadian Medical Association's annual meeting in August, they rejected a motion urging governments to hold hearings on "medical aid in dying."
"Physicians who attend the dying understand how complex this is," says Read.
"Often they can't eliminate the suffering entirely, and they can't make the people better. But I think they understand what a sacred place that can be, and they don't want to turn dying into a thumbs-up, thumbs-down kind of vote."
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