No to euthanasia for mental illness and incompetent people!

Petition to the Political Party Leaders.

Sign the petition: No to euthanasia for mental illness and incompetent people! (Link)

Canada legalized euthanasia (MAiD) in June 2016. At that time the legislation was sold to Canadians as a compromise by permitting euthanasia for physical or psychological suffering but requiring that a person’s “natural death be reasonably foreseeable” before they qualified to be killed by lethal injection.

In September 2019, a Quebec Superior court judge, in Truchon, struck down the requirement in the law that a person’s natural death be reasonably foreseeable. The government did not appeal the decision.

In December, parliament passed Bill C-7, which claimed to be the government’s response to the Quebec Truchon court decision, and yet Bill C-7 goes much further. The government also decided, through Bill C-7, to eliminate the 10-day reflection period in the law, create a 90-day reflection period for people who are approved for euthanasia but not dying and reduce the number of witnesses for the request from two to one and allowing the one witness to be a care giver and more.

As bad as Bill C-7 was, the Canadian Senate voted last week to pass Bill C-7 with 5 amendments. Essentially the Senate approved euthanasia for mental illness alone, but provided the government 18 months to establish rules for euthanasia for mental illness and they approved euthanasia for incompetent people who wrote in their advanced directive that they would want to die by euthanasia.

Legalizing euthanasia gives medical professionals the right in law to lethally inject their patients, but permitting euthanasia for mental illness and through advanced directives directly contradicts the need for effective consent.

We the signed oppose Bill C-7 and demand that parliament reject euthanasia for mental illness and incompetent people.

Links to more articles on this topic:

• Senate passed Bill C-7 with amendments to permit euthanasia for mental illness and incompetent people (Link). 
• Canadians oppose euthanasia for mental illness and child euthanasia (Link).
•  Is euthanasia psychiatric treatment? (Link).