Free Online Conference celebrating 20 years of protecting people from euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Alex Schadenberg

Join EPC on Saturday July 20 to celebrate the 20^th anniversary for Alex Schadenberg as the Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

EPC is celebrating the occasion with a free live online conference from (1 pm to 3:00 pm eastern time) featuring key presenters.

You need to go to the EPC youtube page and press subscribe (Link).

The conference will include: 

• Amy Hasbrouck, (EPC - President), 
• Taylor Hyatt (Toujours Vivant – Not Dead Yet researcher),
• Maxime Huot Couture - Vivre dans la Dignite Quebec)
• Kristina Hodgetts - Compassionate Community Care.
• Catherine Glenn Foster (AUL - President), 
• and Alex Schadenberg.

EPC is focusing on the International campaign to prevent euthanasia and assisted suicide and Canada's five year review of its euthanasia legislation that is scheduled for June 2020. 

Euthanasia: When the Means Justify the Ends

This article was published by Vivre dans la Dignite on Februray 7, 2019

In January, the court hearings began for two Quebec people living with disabilities who are contesting the Federal and Provincial law requiring people to be “at the end of life” or for whom natural death is “reasonably foreseeable” in order to be admissible for euthanasia. In other words, the two plaintiffs are asking for the state to provide them with a doctor who will help them to commit suicide, by euthanasia, even if they are not dying. And since the first day of the hearings, it seems like, for the media at least, the question is already resolved: we simply must allow these two people to commit suicide by lethal injection because they consider their life miserable.

This verdict has been handed down by the media with the full force of the means at its disposal and with seemingly no right of appeal, without even needing to wait for what will be said, neither during the 32 hearing days remaining nor during the six months to analyse the evidence that will be presented in court by various experts.

This is how things work when it comes to euthanasia…

While no one remains unmoved by the stories of Mrs. Gladu and Mr. Truchon’s suffering, it is nonetheless obvious that it would be detrimental for our society to stick to a two-dimensional portrait – as it is naïve in the extreme to reduce the debate around euthanasia to a question of personal choice.

Whatever the most fervent promoters of euthanasia-on-demand say, what is at stake in the current hearings is the very issue of how our society treats and values old people, sick people and those living with a disability.

Indeed, the result of this hearing will determine whether our society will guarantee suicide by euthanasia for people who are not dying but who nonetheless wish to die because they are suffering due to physical or mental limitations which they feel to be inhibiting their autonomy or their quality of life.

At this point, it is essential to understand the reality of the notion of disability: every person with any mental or physical incapacity meets this criterion. So although the image of someone confined to a wheelchair certainly evokes our sympathy and is often used, it is not representative since it excludes the incalculable number of people who meet the same criteria – for example, someone born blind or blinded in an accident, someone with Parkinson’s, or anyone who is old and sick and has difficulty moving around without some sort of assistance.

What is more, the prevailing reasoning among those who promote further extensions to euthanasia rests on a logic that can only end with death-on-demand. According to them, since no one else can effectively judge another person’s suffering – which is true enough – we can’t refuse death to anyone who makes a “considered” request. However, this logic, pushed into his undeclared entrenchments, constitutes in reality a plea in favor of suicide itself, presented as if it was somehow honourable when put in a medical context.

In this context, we no longer flinch in the face of such intense media coverage in favour of suicide by euthanasia for the disabled; we see mounting political pressure, without questioning it, to allow euthanasia for people who have dementia – and are thus unable to consent at the moment they are put to death; and we learn, as if it was a standard procedure, that the largest children hospital in Canada is already working on protocols for when children too will have recourse to suicide by lethal injection – probably, it has been suggested, without needing the consent or awareness of their parents.

Added to these multiple attempts to sweep aside any and all restrictive criteria to a controversial law barely three years old, comes a new “study” from the University of Montreal pleading in favour of euthanasia for people with a mental illness – in other words, people suffering from depression, anxiety, psychosis or schizophrenia – coming to the conclusion that “certain suicides can be considered as rational”.

With each new extension to the law, we hear applause from the same people who reassure us each time with their "strict criteria"” and their “robust safeguards”. And to justify each step down the slope, they always sing the same hymn: “If someone wants to die because they are suffering… who are we to refuse them? After all, it’s their choice!”

But don’t worry: the “slippery slope”, they tell us, is simple scaremongering invented by those who oppose euthanasia.

Nevertheless, as soon as we escape from this prism of personal suffering which can take our reason captive, we can quickly recognize that extending euthanasia to people who are not at the end of their life seriously puts at risk the dignity and protection of those who have become vulnerable through old age, illness of disability. It will also – inevitably – compromise our efforts to prevent suicide.

Indeed, only three years after the legalization of euthanasia in Quebec (under the guise of medical care), public discourse seems to completely devalue the old, the sick and the disabled, presenting disability and loss of autonomy and/or quality of life as such indignities that death can legitimately be preferable to them.

According to this rhetoric, death by euthanasia would constitute a logical choice that would be largely “accepted” and “shared” by society at large. In other words, it seems that everyone agrees that old age and life with a disability are just misery and unbefitting our modern notion of human dignity.

Following this path, we will end up in Canada with what is already happening in Europe: sooner or later, we will discuss seriously the possibility of allowing euthanasia for those who are simply “tired of living”.

Is it really the way we want to look, individually and collectively, at our seniors and at all people living with disabilities? Is it normal that our most natural and compassionate response towards someone who is suffering is to push them off the bridge or help them tie the knot in the rope they contemplate hanging themselves with?

No, obviously not, I hope.

In fact, if we replaced a medically-administered lethal injection by a cruder means of killing, we would not even have this discussion at all because the real nature of the act would be so evident as to wake us up from our euphemism-induced stupor.

Are you looking for different way to leave this world of without suffering? How about a quick dose of a muscle-relaxant followed by the guillotine... It would be even faster than a lethal injection… Although it surely wouldn’t be long before we were accused of barbarism.

Paradoxically, the means chosen to deliver “medical assistance in dying” is in every respect the same as used – though not without controversy – for executions in the United States.

Why is the second denounced as cruel, but the first described as “noble, humane and modern”? It is a matter of personal choice, or so it appears.

To avoid such a catastrophic failure for our society, each one of us has a responsibility to be attentive to those around us who are vulnerable, and to be available to accompany them, support them and make room for them in our lives and in society. For the good of everyone, suicide by euthanasia must never become an answer to life’s sufferings.

Even if the bridge or the rope is in the form of a lethal injection.

Our right to quality palliative care in Québec?

Aubert Martin

This article was published by Mercatornet on June 20, 2018

By Aubert Martin

The Act Respecting End-of-Life Care was sold to us as "first and foremost, a law of access to quality palliative care throughout the territory, at the patient's choice.” When it was adopted – not so long ago – its promoters insisted that it only legalized "medical aid in dying" (euthanasia) as an "exceptional measure for exceptional cases."

However it is now obvious that, almost four years since the day of its adoption and close to three years after its coming into effect, the public authorities have essentially concentrated their efforts on this famous "exceptional measure", giving the impression that the act of killing people to end their suffering – still very controversial – was a cool and trendy way of ending one’s life.

• Québec physicians: Shortage of palliative care is pushing people to euthanasia.

Recently, faced with this regrettable reality, several personalities in the health care community have publicly denounced the fact that, ultimately, the Act Respecting End-of-Life Care does not fulfill its main promise: to guarantee to all of the approximately 60,000 Quebecers who die each year the right to receive quality palliative care if it is needed.

Thus, after the heartfelt appeal of Quebec's two major palliative care associations denouncing the lack of efforts and resources to make quality palliative care accessible in all Quebec nursing homes (CHSLDs), or that of physicians who claimed that some patients are turning to physician-assisted suicide for lack of palliative care options, the Collège des médecins du Québec (CMQ) has also expressed its concerns by highlighting the disorderly application of the Act Respecting End-of-Life Care.

In a letter sent to Dr. Gaétan Barrette, the current Minister of Health, the Collège des médecins mentions that, in some cases, “patients, unable to benefit from [clearly identified palliative care], may have had no choice but to ask for [euthanasia] to end their days...".

Even worse, the College reports a disturbing fact that suggests that the exceptional measure may be imposing itself as a supreme: “The College has been told that patients seeking medical aid in dying were becoming the priority for access to available resources (...) to the detriment of other end-of-life patients with similar needs.”

In other words, those who choose euthanasia are entitled to the best support available in the last moments of their lives, while many others – the vast majority – do not receive the care promised to them in the law. Is that really the ideal of justice that we pursue as a society? Or is it for fear of making tomorrow’s headlines that the medical personnel are rushing to satisfy patients who choose euthanasia? Are they trying to avoid being publicly singled out for not immediately providing the act that has been promoted as the new way to die 2.0?

Meanwhile, instead of strengthening palliative care, the current situation threatens its very sustainability, as the College of Physicians also observes, reporting that “doctors are leaving and not being replaced in many palliative care settings, compromising access to such care.”

In conclusion, it is time to step back and reflect on the entirety of the commitments made in the Act Respecting End-of-Life Care. It is also time to listen carefully to what palliative care professionals have to propose as ways to make our end of life comfortable: after all, they are the experts. And it is time to claim the right that has been legally granted to us as citizens to have access to such care. Any delay in that respect abandons citizens to death without the support of the comfort care they were promised.

On the eve of the provincial elections in October, now is the time for the Quebec population to mobilize and demand that the future government finally listen to the vast majority of the electorate who wish to live with dignity until the end of their lives with the help of quality palliative care.

Aubert Martin is the Executive Director of Vivre dans la Dignité (Living with Dignity), a Quebec-based organisation.

Two years of euthanasia in Quebec: the facts

This article was published by Mercatornet on December 12, 2017

By Aubert Martin

The Canadian province is accelerating past Belgium

The law that legalized euthanasia in Quebec – under the euphemism “medical aid in dying” – came into effect exactly two years ago, on December 10, 2015. Many promises preceded its intrusion into our health system: that this would be an exceptional measure for exceptional cases, that there would be safeguards to prevent abuse, and that very strict criteria would protect vulnerable people. In any case, they told us, it was “first and foremost a law about access to quality palliative care throughout the province.”

Today, we have concrete experience, from right here at home, that allows us to respond to a crucial question: what are the facts after two years?

First of all, the statistics blew reassuring forecasts out of the water, so much so that, in the public discourse, exceptional measures rapidly transformed into a response to a need. In fact, while we were offered a hundred or so requests in the first year, the final result shows that 469 people died by euthanasia in 2015-2016, and 638 in the following year.

In comparing our numbers to those of Belgium (as a percentage of total deaths), we observe that the first year in Quebec corresponds to the sixth year in Belgium, and that our second year is between the seventh and eighth years following the Belgian law. This is to say that Quebec threw itself headlong into death as a solution to suffering.

With respect to the “safeguards”, it is already clear that they do not work. First, let us recall that these safeguards are based on a biased foundation: that of self-reporting. In fact, the physician who evaluates the patient and makes the diagnosis is also the one who causes the patient’s death, and the one who then completes the declaration form to explain to the oversight commission the conformity of his act.

Yet, despite this conflict-of-interest situation which works in favour of the people who administer the deadly injection, the Commission sur les soins de fin de vie (CSFV), in charge of evaluating the application of the law, concluded that there were 21 cases of abuse during the first year and then 31 cases of abuse in the following year. Needless to say, so many infringements put vulnerable people at great risk. However, the most dramatic failure came from the College of Physicians, which judged that “no case justified a punitive intervention.” In doing so, it opened the door wide to repeated violations of the law, justifying their impunity.

Meanwhile, these two years of euthanasia in Quebec have turned the exceptional measure into a promotable solution: safeguards became barriers to access, and the strict criteria – intended to protect vulnerable people – became cruel and discriminatory.

Unsurprisingly, we are also seeing strong pressure to expand access, particularly to people who are not at the end of life, who are unable or too young to consent, or who suffer from psychiatric disorders. By the same token, the tendency that is taking shape before our eyes is transforming euthanasia, originally sold as a personal choice – which nevertheless involves the whole of society – into a choice… for another person.

In conclusion, the facts show that, for the past two years, the situation in Quebec is falling increasingly out of control. Moreover, there has been no effective follow-up on access to palliative care as priority is given only to euthanasia. Thus, for the second year in a row, the Commission mentioned in its report that the “variability of reported information with respect to the number of individuals at the end-of-life who received palliative care does not allow for the processing of these data at this time” (CSFV Report 3.2.1).

Of course, once euthanasia has been sold as a benefit, a gesture of compassion and even a form of health care, this reversal of collective thought is far from surprising.

Yet as a young French writer recently wrote, better to fight so that the last caress of a physician to comfort a patient in her last anguish be by a hand that heals and not one that kills. And so that the last glance received be one of love, humanity, and life.

And while waiting for this salutary reversal, we should ask ourselves, in the light of the facts after two years of euthanasia in Quebec, what is the purpose of having a law, an oversight committee and criteria if it is optional to respect them?

Aubert Martin is the Executive Director of Vivre dans la Dignité (Living with Dignity), a Quebec-based organisation.

Quebec moves toward euthanasia for dementia

This article was published by Mercatornet on September 29, 2017

Aubert Martin

By Aubert Martin

A high-profile murder case has sparked a debate about whether people who cannot consent can be killed ethically

According to a survey conducted last week by the Université de Sherbrooke, in Quebec, 91% of the family caregivers surveyed would agree to extending euthanasia to terminally ill people who are incapable of decision-making, if there were “signs of distress and a written directive”. These latter “conditions” remind us of what was supposed to be the principal criterion in the Quebec law, that of the person being at the “end of life”, which is already being challenged in the courts at the present time.

As usual, instead of seeing in these results a cry of distress from family caregivers of persons with Alzheimer and other dementias, the spotlight is once again focused on euthanasia with its public aura as a solution to suffering. At the same time, it is a real cold shower on all the organisations that accompany with such dedication incapable people and their families. Could we not also infer from this result that only 9 percent of caregivers in Quebec have access to high-quality professional support?

However, before getting carried away by the frenzy of a debate on euthanasia, it would be wise to consider the implications of extending induced death to incapable persons.

First of all, we must recall that the drive for extension of euthanasia to this group was triggered by the high-profile murder of a woman with Alzheimer’s by her husband who “cracked” because he felt left alone. “No one asked me how I’m doing,” he confessed immediately after his act of homicide. Our political decision-makers have turned this murder motivated by desperation into a Trojan horse to promote including a group of extremely vulnerable people among those eligible for medically induced suicide.

In the event of this extension of euthanasia being accepted – less than two years after the law came into force – two “safeguards” that were deemed fundamental at the outset would automatically fall: decision-making capacity and consent to choose death.

Nothing less.

Moreover, in the depth of the current debates, a dramatic message hides behind the possibility of extending euthanasia to people who are no longer able to make their own decisions. Presumably, these people would no longer be fully considered as human beings.

Indeed, their will to live at the moment of their killing would no longer have to be respected, under the pretext of their having written an advance directive in the past. Therefore, it is not a question of consenting or refusing consent to medical care in the event of incapacity – as is the case with the advanced medical directives that are already legal in Quebec. Rather, it is a matter of allowing a person to kill someone who is unable to consent, even when there is no question of artificial life support.

The difference is essential.

In such circumstances, it would be legally – and appear to be morally – possible to explain to them that they are no more than the shadow of a real person who is somehow already dead and who put in writing, in their “true lifetime”, that they would like us to kill them if they became incapable. “You no longer agree? You seem happy now? It does not change anything, you cannot change your mind. Your will to live no longer counts,” we would answer them. “What matters is the document you signed when you were a real person, saying that you must now be put to death. Yes, putting you to death are the exact words since you are in such a vulnerable state that you have become incapable of making an informed decision about yourself or your property. This is the definition of incapacity.”

Thus, by denying their right and even their desire to live, people living with a form of dementia will be implicitly regarded as sub-human beings who will inevitably have to bow to the will of their "former self".

Moreover, this scenario is not some kind of scarecrow. It is not at all hypothetical since we had a concrete example recently in the Netherlands, where a woman with dementia was euthanized against her will. Moreover, the possibility of such a turn of events is reinforced by another result of the Université de Sherbrooke's poll, which reveals that 72 percent of respondents were in favour of euthanasia “even in the absence of a written directive".

Of course, the suffering of family caregivers is very real, but their reaction stems largely from the woeful lack of support for the majority of the people affected by this type of disease. As serious and revealing as it may seem, it has unfortunately become common to hear that death is preferable to life in a CHSLD (nursing home). It seems to me that this would be a good starting point for tackling the problem at the source...

Meanwhile, the dangerous tangent that legal euthanasia installs in every society that has endorsed it continues fatefully its advance in Quebec. It is insinuating into our collective thinking the notion that death – not good health care, quality support and adequate living conditions – is a solution to suffering for you and your loved ones. In the current debate, the logic inherent in assisted suicide now plunges another condition of life into disgrace, such that the death of the people who live with it is presented as preferable.

Yet, in a promotional trailer about the Carpe Diem approach, Ms. Blandine Prévost, 38, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, perfectly sums up the human alternative that should be advocated: "It is in changing the way we are seen by people that lies the hope that I can be a person right to the end."

In other words, beyond debates on euthanasia, it seems therefore urgent to ask ourselves, as a society, how we consider people who have rendered incapable because of illness. Do we still grant them their full humanity?

Aubert Martin is the Executive Director of Vivre dans la Dignité (Living with Dignity), a Quebec-based organisation.

Euthanasia: when safeguards become barriers to access.

This article was published by Mercatornet on July 4, 2017

B

Aubert Martin

y Aubert Martin, Executive Director of Vivre dans la Dignité (Living with Dignity) Quebec

A month after the publication of a letter by the secretary of the College of Physicians of Quebec – in which he expressed his concern about a growing “pressure, demanding a form of death à la carte” and in which he denounced those who interpret refusals of euthanasia as a form of exclusion – lawyer Jean-Pierre Ménard is challenging before the courts the cases of two people living with disabilities who were refused the assistance of a physician to kill themselves.

The plaintiffs requested the removal of the “reasonably foreseeable death” clause of the federal law as well as the “end of life” requirement in the Quebec law.

More voices were added to the chorus of “rebels” decrying the cruelty of all criteria that dare make reference to the proximity of death.

Yet not so long ago, the elected Members of the National Assembly in Quebec (MNAs) were congratulating themselves on the wisdom of their law that made reference to… the end of life. This is another reversal of logic in the long list of changes of rhetoric we have already witnessed.

Indeed, at the time of the adoption of the Quebec bill, words like “safeguard” and “strict conditions” peppered the speech of those seeking to calm the fears of people wary of allowing homicide under certain circumstances.

Today, potential extensions of the law are justified by referring to “consensus” and “the will of the people,” while the “safeguards” have turned into “barriers to access”.

Meanwhile, the same promoters of euthanasia who claimed that it was only a matter of “exceptional requests for exceptional cases” have updated their rhetoric to justify the explosion of euthanasia requests: it has become “a response to a need.”

Yet, before the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Quebec and in Canada, warnings of the slippery slope were met with mockery and contempt from those who embraced medical suicide with open arms.

At best, this cautious warning, based on the experience of countries that legalized euthanasia before us, was treated as a scarecrow brandished by alarmists. “The slippery slope doesn’t exist!” responded those anti-skeptics and other merchants of death.

Today, slightly more than a year after the Quebec bill 52 that legalized euthanasia came into force, we see the first obvious signs of the slippery slope: we have gone from exception to promotion. Already the “end of life” criterion is presented as discrimination which prevents people with disabilities from committing suicide, implying that their living conditions justify their desire to die.

Secondly, the argument that euthanasia is about “capable and consenting people” is giving way to the idea of killing an incapable person (with Alzheimer’s or dementia) regardless of the person’s consent at the time of death.

Finally, according to a Canadian study published in May, the proverbial patient writhing in pain on his deathbed has morphed into a person in existential crisis over his loss of autonomy (read: disability).

So we won’t be surprised if tomorrow we are presented with other ludicrous propositions, such as the one currently gaining popularity in the Netherlands: opening “medical aid in dying” to elderly people who feel they have accomplished their lives.

A society does not accept overnight the idea that the state should endorse the suicide of an elderly and healthy person simply because she is tired of living. It must first live through the deep malaise that accompanies every new expansion of euthanasia access that is sold to us as progress.

In fact, when we think about it, the only thing that is “reasonably foreseeable” is the extension of medically assisted suicide to more and more groups of people. If death is sold as a solution to suffering, and if suicide is viewed favourably when a doctor is involved, the real question is not why some are opposed to it, but rather “why say yes to one and no to others?”

Aubert Martin is the Executive Director of Vivre dans la Dignité (Living with Dignity), a Quebec-based organisation.

Euthanasia and Alzheimers in Canada.

This article was published by Mercatornet on February 27, 2017.

By Aubert Martin

The euthanasia machine has once again become activated, following the “compassionate” murder of a woman with advanced stage Alzheimer’s. Although the details are not yet known, it appears that her exhausted spouse may have “cracked”. The despair into which this poor man plunged demonstrates well the harsh reality that caregivers can endure when providing for a relative with Alzheimer’s disease.

However, instead of questioning the support offered to the sick and their loved ones, the debate was immediately channeled towards euthanasia, conveniently called “medical aid in dying”.

Murder of woman with dementia in Montréal leads to demand for more euthanasia.

Thus, while the first year of euthanasia has just ended – with 21 cases of abuse which will not lead to any disciplinary action – supporters of euthanasia are crying out for an expansion of the law which they denounce as cruel because it is too restrictive. They hope that the justice system – which today accuses this man of murder – will revise its position so that in the future a doctor can perform the same act with impunity.

By this very fact, they confirm the existence of the famous slippery slope that opens the ever-enlarging door to “emotionally acceptable reasons” to expand the scope of euthanasia. In fact, this kind of reasoning that trivializes such acts has recently resulted in a bill in the Netherlands which would permit euthanasia for elderly people in good health who feel they have lived their lives to completion.

There are inherent contradictions in this poisonous logic – such as hearing, in the same breath, that compassionate murder is an “inexcusable act”, but that people should have access to medical suicide under the guise of “health care”. But the emotional picture of the drama that took place on Monday at a nursing home hits hard enough on the public imagination to such a point that we are hearing demands to formalize the marriage between “love” and “murder” by a certificate of advance consent.

However, wanting to broaden the law to give advanced consent to suicide – through an advance directive – raises many ethical and moral questions.

What is the status of people with dementia such as Alzheimer’s? Are we talking about a subcategory of human beings that could be eliminated if their “old self” asked for it? Or is it a group of people that society considers henceforth unworthy but tolerated if it is a personal choice – as already implied in our laws on euthanasia and assisted suicide with respect to people with disabilities? Are there categories of “unworthy” people?

Is it really this condescending look that we want to give to people weakened by disease? Recently, the Netherlands provided us with a concrete example of how such logic was achieved: a woman with dementia was euthanized against her will.

Indeed, despite her dementia, she had clearly expressed that she no longer wanted to die; but she was trapped by her advanced directive. She even struggled to resist the doctor who was injecting the deadly poison. The doctor had to resort to having the woman’s family members forcefully restrain her to ensure that the verdict of her paper, signed in the prime of her life, was respected. Her refusal to die was not taken into account, merely because of her mental state; as if this woman was only identified with her illness.

The tragedy that is making headlines now in Quebec should be a wake-up call to prevent our society from taking another step in the wrong direction. There is still time to change our perspective on people made vulnerable by sickness, old age, or disability.

Someone I know took care of his mother who had Alzheimer’s for several years. There is no doubt that being welcomed by his own mother with a “good morning dear sir” sometimes felt like a dagger in his heart. Yet this worthy man, putting aside the fact that his mother no longer recognized him, kept honouring her because he, on the other hand, remembered that she was his mother.

Aubert Martin is the Executive Director of Vivre dans la Dignité (Living with Dignity), a Quebec-based organisation.

Euthanasia: When the suffering of one becomes the misery of others.

This article was published on the Vivre dans la Dignité blog on October 27.

Aubert Martin

Aubert Martin is the Executive Director of Vivre dans la Dignité

Recently, a lady told me that she had just lost her brother who died suddenly, three days after a fall on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, the circumstances of his death leave some doubt as to the exact cause of death. Is it due to his cancer, discovered a few days earlier? Is it related to his psychiatric problems? Is it a case of “strongly encouraged” euthanasia?

The lady has a lot of questions, but no answer will be given. Indeed, despite her legitimate doubts, nobody is able to enlighten or reassure her.

On one hand, Quebec’s College of Physicians asked not to include "medical aid in dying" on the death certificates of patients. Instead, doctors must identify the main disease of the deceased. Therefore, it is impossible, for those who survive the deceased, to find a paper trail if euthanasia is the actual cause of death.

On the other hand, the lady has been given the answer that her brother being dead, there is nothing they can do for her. This is the uncompromising truth of death: it is irreversible.

Thus, survivors like this lady find themselves left behind. Alone in their grief. They are set aside to preserve the supreme principle of the autonomy of individuals.

In legalizing euthanasia, society has crowned the splendor of individualism in balancing the weight of two pains: the suffering of an individual versus the suffering of their relatives. They have decreed that the suffering of relatives should not be considered in calculating the benefit of euthanasia.

To reinforce this point, the flattering and illusory portrait presented to the public always depicts the same picture: a family and an entourage who fully agree with the decision of their relative’s wish to die, and a medical team in total harmony with the family.

Of course, the reality is much more nuanced, and suffering is so much more widespread than the rosy photoshops offered by the promoters of euthanasia.

Imagine that your father was euthanized by a doctor without you having been consulted – as recommended by the law – and perhaps even without you being able to say one last goodbye. How would you feel: grateful or betrayed? How would you see this doctor who gave death to your father without consulting his own children? How would you mourn your father knowing he preferred the advice of two random doctors who judged, after meeting him briefly, that they approved of his desire to die?

The reality is that we may praise euthanasia with soft, buttered words, we may celebrate those who die with champagne and selfies, there will always be people who will have in their heart a painful sense of betrayal after the voluntary death of their relative.

But from now on, they will have to keep their pain to themselves until the end of their lives, since medical suicide is, more than ever, presented as the ideal way to die. Unfortunately, the story of the lady who lost her brother whom she loved so much illustrates the suffering that can result from euthanasia.

And it brings out a troubling question: where is the suffering of the relatives in the new equation of compassion?

Groups opposing euthanasia warn Canadian government.

On April 11, 2016; Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, and Aubert Martin executive director of Living with Dignity Québec, held a press conference in Ottawa to warn the federal government about abuse of the law before it introduces euthanasia legislation. QMI reported on the press conference by publishing an article by Guillaume St-Pierre.

Aubert Martin & Alex Schadenberg 

The Quebec organization, Living with Dignity, warned the federal government, which is preparing to introduce a bill on medical help to die, against possible abuses. 

"After only four months since the start of the law that legalized euthanasia in Quebec, we are already witnessing the first slip," said the CEO of the organization during a press briefing in Ottawa on Monday, Aubert Martin. 

In early March, the Collège des médecins du Québec (CMQ) had to issue an opinion in which he reminded members that attempted suicide is not a refusal of treatment. 

The warning served to rein in doctors who chose not to resuscitate patients who have tried to kill themselves by poisoning when they came to the emergency. 

This example demonstrates, according to Mr Martin, that the health system needs to "relieve, not kill." 

"From the beginning the play on words, calling medical assistance to die that is actually human euthanasia," he added. 

The Trudeau government is drafting future legislation governing medical help to die for people with severe and irreversible diseases. 

Parliament has until June 6 to pass the legislation giving effect to a judgment of the Supreme Court, which invalidated sections of the Criminal Code prohibiting euthanasia. 

However, the Quebec organization to live in dignity continues to oppose any form of supervision of what he still considers to be a "homicide". 

"We're talking about a law that will allow in certain circumstances, another person to kill or help to someone to kill oneself. Instead of promoting assisted suicide, the provincial and federal governments should work to improve palliative care," insisted Mr. Martin.

We expect that the euthanasia legislation will be introduced next week.