NEWS RELEASE
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC)
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, BC (EPC - BC)
Assisted suicide/euthanasia case is a recipe for elder abuse and a threat to individual patient rights
November 9, 2011 - For immediate release
Vancouver, BC: On November 14, 2011, trial will begin in Carter v. Attorney General of Canada, which seeks to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia. Last year, Parliament defeated a bill seeking a similar result. The vote was 228 to 59. EPC was an instrumental force in obtaining this overwhelming defeat.
EPC and EPC - BC have intervenor standing in Carter. They oppose assisted suicide because legalization is a recipe for elder abuse and a threat to individual patient rights.
A recipe for elder abuse
Will Johnston, a Vancouver physician and Chair of the EPC - BC states:
EPC and EPC - BC have intervenor standing in Carter. They oppose assisted suicide because legalization is a recipe for elder abuse and a threat to individual patient rights.
A recipe for elder abuse
Will Johnston, a Vancouver physician and Chair of the EPC - BC states:
"I see elder abuse in my practice, often perpetrated by family members and caregivers. A desire for money or an inheritance is typical. To make it worse, the victims protect the perpetrators. In one case, an older woman knew that her son was robbing her blind and lied to protect him. Why? Family loyalty, shame, and fear that confronting the abuser will cost love and care.
Under current law, abusers take their victims to the bank and to the lawyer for a new will. With legal assisted suicide, the next stop would be the doctor’s office for a lethal prescription. How exactly are we going to detect the victimization when we can’t do it now?"
Preventing elder abuse is official Government of Canada policy.
A threat to individual patient rights
In Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1997, people desiring treatment under the Oregon Health Plan have been offered assisted suicide instead. The most well known cases involve Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup. Each wanted treatment. The Plan offered them assisted suicide instead.
Wagner and Stroup were steered to suicide. Moreover, it was the Oregon Health Plan, a government entity, doing the steering. If assisted suicide were to be legalized in Canada, the Canadian health care system would be similarly empowered to steer patients to suicide.
Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of EPC, states:
"With legal assisted suicide, the healthcare system, doctors and the government would be empowered, not individual patients."Learn more
To learn more about problems with the Carter case, click here: http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2011/11/carter-case-and-assisted-suicide-recipe.html
MEDIA CONTACTS
Will Johnston, MD, williardjohnston@shaw.ca (604) 220 2042
Alex Schadenberg, info@epcc.ca (519) 851 1434
This is very controversial issue, like an adult version of pro-life and pro-choice. As much as people do have a choice whether they want to die or not, suicide in my opinion should be done by one person alone -- the one who wanted to commit suicide. Also it's not written in the patient right to have a right to suicide, so Doctors are not obliged to do it unless they are willing to take part in it. The Arizona malpractice lawyers said that Doctors who take part in assisted suicides are not rare, but just hidden from the public.
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