Deadly Misinformation - euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada.

This article was published by Convivium on December 21, 2016.

By Albertos Polizogopoulos and Faye Sonier

Albertos Polizogopoulos

Now that assisted suicide and euthanasia have been decriminalized in Canada, news articles and opinion pieces are spreading incorrect information about the legal obligations and rights of the parties affected by this change in law. While the authors of these pieces are likely well intentioned and simply unaware that the information shared is misleading or wrong, it is vital that we set the record straight each time this occurs.

An example of this is the recent Globe and Mail piece, “Hospitals have no right to opt out of assisted dying.” Reporter Andre Picard states that faith-based hospitals have no right to opt-out of providing assistance in suicide. The support for this conclusion is his assertion that “Institutions do not have a conscience. Institutions do not have rights." He also asserts that in Carter v. Canada , the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that individuals have a right to physician-assisted suicide. Neither of these assertions is accurate.

First, the Supreme Court of Canada did not conclude that Canadians have a legal right to physicians-assisted suicide. What the Supreme Court concluded was that the Criminal Code prohibition on assisted-suicide violated the Charter right to life of certain individuals. You read that correctly—a prohibition on killing violates the right to life, but that’s an entire different piece to write.

Faye Sonier

Specifically, the Court found that “the prohibition on physician-assisted dying had the effect of forcing some individuals to take their own lives prematurely, for fear that they would be incapable of doing so when they reached the point where suffering was intolerable.” The Court’s conclusion was, in large part, based on the fact that in the 1970s, Parliament decriminalized attempted suicide because it realized that individuals who had attempted to take their own life needed psychological counselling, not jail.

Because suicide was not a crime, the Court viewed it as a legal option for individuals and because certain people with debilitating conditions, like Kay Carter, would not have the physical ability to take their own lives when their condition worsened, they would take their life earlier. To some, this distinction may not sound important, but in law, it’s a crucial distinction.

The Deadly problems with euthanasia Bill C-14

This article was written by Dr Will Johnston and published in the Huffington Post on April 22, 2016.

Dr Will Johnston

Dr Will Johnston is the Chair of EPC - BC.

It is not surprising that many Canadians are concerned about the dangers of the new assisted suicide and euthanasia bill, C-14.

What is really not credible is how the word-benders who used the Charter "right to life" to legalize the intentional suicide or killing of some patients are now protesting that they have been cheated of total victory. While they were in court, they said that all they wanted was for competent consenting adults who were suffering terribly at the end of life to be able to have a doctor kill them, with no criminal consequences for anyone.

Now they are hopping mad that non-adults and those who are mentally incompetent, those unable to consent, those whose suffering is purely psychological, and those with years to live just might be excluded. They don't have to worry. The same semantic ju-jitsu which delivered the Carter decision to them will have no problem convincing the courts to invite whoever else to the death party.

"Even Kay Carter would not have qualified under C-14" , says the BCCLA organization, which wants assisted suicide and euthanasia to be widely available. This is hard to believe. An awful lot of people will qualify under C-14.

Are you eligible for your provincial medicare?

Are you an adult?

Do you have a grievous medical condition (like Kay Carter's spinal stenosis)?

Is it irremediable (if you decline surgery for spinal stenosis it automatically becomes irremediable)?

Are you in an advanced state (not defined) of irreversible decline (spinal stenosis won't go away without surgery)?

Is your situation intolerable (your call)?

Is your death reasonably foreseeable ( like it is for 89 year olds like Kay Carter)?

Do you want to die?

We just approved Kay Carter for assisted suicide. How hard was that?

Now let's say you have some money and some real estate and your heirs are waiting for you to die. Your doctor does some tests and thinks you have something - let's call it malignant sarcophagosis. You are duly impressed and share your story with your beneficiaries. Under C-14, your beneficiaries can tell you how you don't have to suffer and how OK it would be with them if you let a doctor, nurse practitioner, or anyone aiding them kill you . Blatantly urging someone to commit suicide remains illegal, but how do we enforce that against a quiet word, a wink and a nod?

One of your heirs can even sign the request for you, if you have difficulty writing.

Then two independent doctors will agree that malignant sarcophagosis will work for you just like spinal stenosis would have for Kay Carter. It is not surprising that they will agree, because one of those independent doctors is the one who will kill you with an intravenous injection or provide you with suicide pills. The other doctor will reliably concur, not least because there is no limit to the doctor shopping to locate a compliant one.

But what if your sarcophagosis is of milder sort, the semi-malignant kind? No problem, because your "natural death" just has to be "reasonably foreseeable", and no need to specify "the specific length of time."

But what if the physicians goofed, and you don't have malignant sarcophagosis, or the mental competence to consent, or an uncoerced wish to die? No worries, because a blanket protection called "reasonable but mistaken belief" about "any fact" protects them even if you are dead as a result.

Oh, by the way, absolutely anyone is allowed to "assist" you to administer your suicide dose, with no oversight yet mentioned in this law. If you had changed your mind and struggled, who would know?

Meanwhile, aboriginal leaders, including Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette , are justified in wondering where the intensity required to prevent suicide among youth is going to come from.

If one ounce of the effort that has been put into assisted suicide and euthanasia had gone toward suicide prevention, or of course palliative care, it would be easier to take the howls of outrage from the extremists for whom C-14 will never go far enough.

So what should be done? Ideally, throw out the law, and strengthen the wording of the current law against assisting suicide (because the Supreme Court played games with the old wording about needing to protect only the "vulnerable"). Make palliative care access, not suicide access, mandatory in law.

But failing that, at bare minimum ensure independent third party review before all proposed deaths. Don't let any two wannabe Kevorkians wave these things through. Defend the rights of all Canadians by guaranteeing that no doctor or institution will be coerced to participate, and say so loud and clear in the law.

We must not leave such a pillar of our freedom to an uncertain fate inside Ministry of Health regulations, which, "for lack of time," have not yet been revealed.

Will Johnston is a Vancouver family physician and Chair of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of BC

Decision of the Supreme Court in the Carter Case: Vulnerable people are most at risk

Media Release
Montreal, February 6, 2015 

The citizen network Living with Dignity and the Physicians' Alliance against Euthanasia acknowledge today's ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada in Carter v. Canada (Attorney General). By stipulating that Kay Carter was within her rights to demand assisted suicide, and asking the Parliament of Canada to amend the Criminal Code to state that "medical aid in dying" is not a homicide, and therefore should not be penalized, the highest court in the land deeply upsets Canadian society.

"This decision of the Supreme Court contradicts the view of the European Court of Human Rights (Pretty v. United Kingdom) said Dr. Marc Beauchamp, president of Living with Dignity. Considering that the Court reaffirms the federal-provincial shared competence on these issues, we encourage parliamentarians to eventually frame in the strictest possible way any exceptions to prevent anyone from being unjustly euthanized without their consent and that such policies never come against access to proper medical care. To avoid abuse and extensions found in Belgium and the Netherlands, Canada must impose much stronger safeguards than those established in the laws and regulations of those countries."

Living with Dignity and the Physicians' Alliance against Euthanasia will continue to advocate for the protection of life and the inherent and inalienable dignity of people made vulnerable by illness, old age or disability. In solidarity, we will make sure to accompany them compassionately.

BC Court of Appeal upholds protections in law from euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Supreme Court of Canada is next.

By Alex Schadenberg, executive director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

On Thursday, October 10; the British Columbia (BC) Court of Appeal upheld Canada’s laws prohibiting euthanasia and assisted suicide, in a 2 to 1 decision by overturneding the disturbing lower court decision in 2012 by Justice Smith in the Carter case.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC), who intervened in the Carter case, applauded the BC Court of Appeal decision by stating:

“EPC is pleased that the Court has followed the lead of Canadian Parliament, the Supreme Court of Canada, and of the majority of Parliaments and Supreme Courts around the world in finding that the prohibitions against assisted suicide represent an important protection against abuse of vulnerable people.”

The Carter case, was launched by the family of Kay Carter, a woman who died by assisted suicide in 2010 in Switzerland. The Carter family claimed that Kay was denied the “right” to die with dignity in Canada and her family were forced to break the law by assisting her travel to Switzerland for suicide. The BC Civil Liberties Association represented the Carter family.

On June 15, 2012, Justice Smith wrongly decided that Canada’s assisted suicide law was unconstitutional. Smith found that people with disabilities who are unable to kill themselves by suicide without assistance were discriminated by the law. 

Smith also decided that “safeguards” can effectively protect vulnerable people. Smith gave parliament one year to pass a law allowing assisted suicide and a limited form of euthanasia in Canada.

Fortunately, the federal government appealed the decision of Justice Smith to the BC Court of Appeal.

The BC Court of Appeal found that Smith did not have the right to strike down Canada’s assisted suicide law and that she made several errors and incorrect assumptions in her decision.

The BC Court of Appeal stated that Smith was wrong when she found that the circumstances had sufficiently changed since 1993, giving her the right to strike down the 1993 Rodriguez decision.

In 1993, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Canada’s assisted suicide law in the Rodriguez case, a case that was based on Sue Rodriguez. Rodriguez, who was living with ALS, petitioned the courts to grant her the right to die by assisted suicide.

The BC Court of Appeal also found that Smith was wrong when she assumed that the Rodriguez decision did not consider certain constitutional analysis. The BC Court of Appeal concluded that only the Supreme Court of Canada has the right to overturn its decisions.

The BC Court of Appeal decision challenged Smith’s assertion that Canada’s assisted suicide law discriminates against people with disabilities. The majority stated that:

“those who have only a limited ability to enjoy life are not less alive and have no less a right to life, than able-bodied and fully competent persons.

EPC was pleased that the BC Court of Appeal recognized that Canada’s laws prohibiting assisted suicide meet the legislative objective that is grounded in respect for and the desire to protect human life and the current assisted suicide law is rationally connected to its purpose.

The BC Court of Appeal also acknowledged that parliament had recently considered a bill (Bill C-384) that would have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada. On April 21, 2010, parliament overwhelmingly defeated Bill C-384 by a vote of 228 to 59.

The BC Civil Liberties Association announced that it will appeal the BC Court of Appeal decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) will seek to intervene, if the Supreme Court of Canada decides to hear the Carter case.

Laws that prohibit euthanasia and/or assisted suicide provide equal protection in law for all people and uphold the safety of all people, in every life conditions, from having their life taken from them.

Dr. Will Johnston, the EPC - BC chair talks about the Carter Case after the BC Court of Appeal overturned the lower court decision by upholding Canada's laws protecting Canadians from euthanasia and assisted suicide. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfoA71TGTf0&feature=youtu.be

Links to other similar articles.
EPC applauds BC Court of Appeal ruling  in assisted suicide case.
Irish Supreme Court upholds protections in law from assisted suicide using similar evidence as in the Carter case.
EPC wants BC Court of Appeal to reverse errors by the lower court in Carter case.

How the Public Was Duped into Supporting Assisted Suicide

Dr. Will Johnston

By Dr Will Johnston,
Chair of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition - BC

This article was originally published in the Huffington Post on June 22, 2012

We live or die by the health of the physical environment which we struggle to conserve. Just as crucially, we are nourished by an ethical environment, the moral oxygen of our human world.

In the beautiful words of Dr. Margaret Cottle, a colleague of mine, we have been standing among ancient trees, an old-growth forest of noble principle. It has been growing organically for 2,400 years, since Hippocrates, a "delicate social ecology of mutual support and protection" which forbids the killing of a patient.

Carter v. Canada , the judge-decreed legalization of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in Canada, tries to take a chainsaw to that old-growth forest. Once it is gone, it will be gone forever. Plant some seedlings, but it will never be the same. Whether the prior Supreme Court of Canada ruling against this, and the clearly voted will of Parliament can be dismissed by a provincial court judge is now a topic of outrage.

What is notable and fascinating is how carefully this assault on our ancient and hard-won ethical environment has been planned. The door had to be opened, if only a crack, by using a story so compelling and a situation so extreme that ordinary people would be easily led by their compassion.

Carter v. Canada was at first only the tale of Kay Carter, an 88-year-old woman who was taken to Switzerland to die. The addition of likeable 64-year-old ALS victim, Gloria Taylor, four months after the lawsuit was launched, put meat on the bones of the case and has been a publicity triumph.

The general public thinks that the Carter ruling is only about appealing people like Gloria Taylor with desperate terminal illnesses. Her lawyer, Joe Arvay, claims publicly that the case is only about a tiny number of people in clearly hopeless situations. This is a useful tactic to get one foot in the door.

It would be nice to know the final plan, and fortunately Jocelyn Downie, the architect of the whole strategy, spelled it out in 2008:

There are many individuals whose lives are no longer worth living to them who have not been diagnosed with a terminal illness. They may be suffering greatly and permanently, but are not imminently dying. There is no principled basis for excluding them from assisted suicide. 

Similarly, Arvay mused recently that his interest in the topic of euthanasia was sparked by seeing his mother "curled up in a fetal position for 5 years in a nursing home." Hard to give consent when you are demented. Maybe the need for competence and consent needs the re-thinking that is being urged in Washington state right now. Ominously, Arvay made this comment after delivering an invited lecture about assisted suicide and euthanasia at a Vancouver hospital for severely disabled children.

People who qualify to die under Carter would appear to not require physical disability (though it must be expected "soon"), and they must have a "serious" illness, which may be defined as "without remedy" if available care is not "acceptable to the person."

The suffering can be physical or psychological. ("Psychosocial" was disallowed in a burst of judicial restraint.) "Advanced weakened capacities." "No chance of improvement." The right number of hurdles to give some sport to the lawyers who will come after, but no problem jumping them if, say, you just stop taking your insulin: "Your honor, my client has had to thrust a sharpened tube of surgical steel into her person (see Section 7 of the Charter) four times a day for decades. How can the state force this agony to continue?"

Doctors have been free to abhor killing for 2400 years. It was a good run.

Professor Tom Koch responds to Royal Society of Canada one-sided report.

Professor Tom Koch, a consultant in bioethics and gerontology in Toronto and Vancouver and works in chronic care and hospice, responded to the Royal Society of Canada pro-euthanasia propaganda report, in an article that was printed in the Toronto Star on Wednesday, November 16, 2011.

The article follows:

Confusing the issue

By Tom Koch
Forget issues of terminal illness and the end of life. The court case that began Monday in the B.C. Supreme Court is not about the right to die (you will die) or a right to life (you’ve got that). It is not about the right to be free of pain in the midst of an illness. Palliative care, all agree, is the basis of good chronic care medicine.

One of the confusions in the case and in the Royal Society of Canada’s report on end-of-life decision-making released Tuesday is that they pretend to concern termination by physicians in the late stage of inevitably terminal illness. They are, however, framed to include potentially anyone who, dissatisfied by life, seeks state approval for a medically assisted termination.

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Petition Campaign

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) gained intervention standing in the Carter v Attorney General of Canada case (Carter case), a case that intends to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada through the court. This case will begin to be heard by Justice Lynne Smith of the BC Supreme Court on Monday, November 14, 2011

Since the Carter case is likely to go to the Supreme Court of Canada, EPC has designed a petition campaign to the Attorney General of Canada (AG) supporting the AG’s strongest possible opposition to the legalization of euthanasia and/or assisted suicide in Canada.

The petition is available in two formats, a downloadable PDF format and an online petition. Both formats will be sent to the AG.

The printed petition is available in French and English and can be downloaded from the EPC website at. Link to the PDF petition for printing.

The online petition is available at: Link to the online petition.

Important article concerning the Carter case.

Carter v. Attorney General of Canada Assisted Suicide case. A legal review.

Bradley Miller who is an Associate Professor of the Faculty of Law at the University of Western Ontario has written an interesting legal review of the legal precedents related to the Carter case that will be heard by Justice Lynne Smith in British Columbia beginning on November 14.

Link to the article.

Miller's article was published by the UK Constitutional Law Group, examines the Carter case based on their Statement of Claim and the fact that to be successful the Carter case will require the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn the Rodriguez decision from 1993.

Miller concludes that if the Supreme Court of Canada overturns the Rodriguez decision and thereby legalizes assisted suicide and/or euthanasia, that the Court would likely make that decision with the expectation that Parliament would create a legal framework to protect vulnerable Canadians. He then states that the court must take into consideration that history has proven that Parliament may not be politically capable of creating a legal framework leaving Canada in a legal vacuum, without legal protections.

BCCLA Carter case will include many sad experiences

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Associated Press wrote an article concerning the affidavit from Susan Bracken, a woman from Barrie ON submitted as evidence to the BCCLA Carter case that will begin to be heard on November 14, 2011.

The BCCLA Carter case is attempting to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide through the court. There have been several very upsetting stories that have been submitted to the court as evidence that euthanasia and assisted suicide should be legalized to allow people to die a dignified death.

I have read Susan Bracken's, story concerning the death of her husband, and my heart is torn by it, but I fail to understand how her story is a good reason to legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide.

The question to me is why did her husband need to suffer in this manner? There are many things that are being done to enable a comfortable death, without intentionally causing that person's death. Excellent end-of-life and chronic care must be provided in Canada, and other countries before we consider legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide. Excellent end-of-life care exists, but it needs to be more readily available.

The concept of giving a physician or medical care-giver the right to lethally inject or provide a lethal dose to a person to supposedly eliminate suffering is confusing when we further learn how it is often a lack of training or the neglect of the medical care-giver that led to the uncontrolled suffering in the first place.

Bracken also writes about the concerns that she, and others have, related to the aging population.

I share her concern with how we care for people who live with chronic conditions, elderly dependent people and people with disabilities. There is a growing prevalence of elder abuse and abuse of the vulnerable within our society. Governments are taking action to mitigate the scourge of elder abuse but the abuse of the elderly and other vulnerable people is related to societal attitudes. These are the same societal attitudes that lead to the abuse that will occur if doctors, and others, are given the right to intentionally cause death.


The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition believes in the importance of societal change and improvement. We are looking forward to the November 2011 release of the report from the Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassion Care. This all-party parliamentary report is written in response to consultations from leaders and people from across Canada. The report will reportedly, make recommendations concerning the effective changes that relate to the concerns that Susan Bracken is expressing with respect to the death of her husband and the type of deaths that we will all experience in the future.

We need to provide the necessary care. We do not need to give physicians, and possibly others, the right to cause our deaths.

Mark Pickup responds to the Canadian government concerning euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The following blog post was written by Mark Pickup in response to a request by the federal department of justice for information in relation to the upcoming BCCLA Carter case. The Carter case is an attempt to remove, through the court, the protections in law from euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Mark's blog comment has gained international attention and was received a comment by bioethicist Wesley Smith.

This is a reprint of Pickup's original blog comment:
----------------------------------------------------

Firstly, I want to thank you for hearing my concerns about efforts by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association to strike down Canada’s laws against assisted suicide and euthanasia. This memorandum is meant to recap my input during today’s discussion.

Being chronically ill and disabled with degenerative multiple sclerosis (MS) I am deeply concerned about the disastrous impact a successful challenge would have on people such as me.

You posed the question: “How do my concerns about assisted suicide interact with my religious beliefs?” Is the purpose of the question is to determine whether I am able to separate the context of my religious life from dialogue within a secular sphere of legal or public policy discussions? My answer is an unequivocal Yes.

Your question is shrewd and strategic. I am aware that there is a tendency amongst proponents of euthanasia and assisted suicide to try and relegate opposition by Christian citizens to the backwaters of public policy debate. Let me be blunt and clear: It is thinly veiled anti-Christian bigotry intended to silence or nullify views of Christians as irrelevant to public discourse. I utterly reject such tactics and refuse to be conveniently shuffled off to the sidelines. I may be a Christian but I am also a Canadian citizen with responsibilities and rights.

I bring to public discourse decades of advocacy for disability inclusion into the social fabric of Canadian life. My perspective is of someone experienced with community development combined with the perspective of having a progressive disability.

Assisted suicide is intended for people like me. I have a vested interest in where the Carter/Taylor challenge may lead if successful.

My citizenship rights entitle me (and other Canadians with disabilities) to equal protections of the law. The first Legal Right mentioned in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (as well as Article 3 of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights) is the Right to Life. There is no mention of a Right to Death. Human rights must protect life not death. Death does not need protecting; it is an eventuality that will visit everyone regardless of what any law might state.

Canada’s Charter does mention in Section 7 the right not to be deprived of security of the person but it is qualified and not sufficient to override laws on euthanasia or assisted suicide. Why? Because by doing so it will jeopardize “principles of fundamental justice” for present and future vulnerable populations.

THE COMMON GOOD

In the unanimous 1997 U.S. Supreme Court ruling for states right to prohibit assisted suicide, former Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, wrote “An examination of our Nation's history, legal traditions, and practices demonstrates that Anglo-American common law has punished or otherwise disapproved of assisting suicide for over 700 years”.[1] The Hippocratic Oath, dating back thousands of years, forbade euthanasia by physicians. It would take great arrogance and self-centredness to demand that all this change to accommodate me, or any other individual. Nations must nurture the ideal of collective interdependent community. Accepting euthanasia not only works against this ideal, it rejects wisdom of the ages and embarks into dangerous public policy direction and practice.

Acceptance of assisted suicide places personal autonomy as paramount. This must be rejected. Autonomy is diametrically opposed to the concept of community. As John Donne stated in the 17th Century, “No man is an island entire unto itself”.

If I choose assisted suicide it will not affect just me: It will affect my wife, children and grandchildren. It will affect my community by not teaching the importance of inclusion and accommodation of people with terminal, chronic illnesses or severe disabilities. It will affect my physician because I will ask her to cease being a healer and become my executioner or participate in killing me. And in a small but certain way, my assisted suicide would help to coarsen the collective public conscience and further entrench the notion that there is such a thing as lives unworthy of life ― so unworthy that society will end or help to end those lives.

Assisted suicide threatens to turn back the clock of inclusion that disability advocates and their allies fought so hard to gain throughout many decades. Assisted suicide is a cheap and short-sighted compassion that ends in the ultimate exclusion of the tomb.

MEANING AND WORDS

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said
in rather a scornful tone,
“it means just what I choose it
to mean―neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice,
“whether you can make words
mean different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty,
“which is to be master―that’s all.”[2]

The word kill inflames discussion but it is an accurate description of what we are talking about. Euphemisms like “liberation” or “exit” or “gentle landing” are intentionally meant to obscure the harsh reality of assisted suicide and euthanasia. They are not useful to discussion. In such serious matters as life and death we must not sanitize language or change the meaning of language because it confuses important concepts and ideas.

Death with dignity: You will hear euthanasia advocates talk about “a right to death with dignity.” Where is such a right enshrined in law? There is no “right” to death with dignity. Death with dignity is not something that is bestowed upon someone with poison when they are at their lowest point. That is not dignity, it is a profound abandonment. Dying with dignity is a process not an event. It is the natural conclusion of having lived with dignity. It has been my experience that people do not die with any more dignity than they live with.

If Canada is really concerned with dignity at the end of life then put in place a National Palliative Care Strategy to ensure all Canadians have access to state-of-the-art palliative care when needed. Ensure medical schools and nursing programs equip graduates with the skills required to provide 21st Century palliation and pain control.

Virtually all physical pain can be controlled or eliminated. Ottawa palliative care specialist, Dr. John Scott wrote an essay in which he stated:

“The World Health Organization has demonstrated that access to pain-relieving drugs, along with a simple educational program, can achieve relief in the vast majority of patients. Specialists in various parts of the world estimate these basic approaches can control 85 to 98 percent of cases. The remaining cases require more careful attention and the use of multiple drugs and therapies to achieve complete relief.”[3]

These words were written in 1995. How much better has pain management become in the intervening sixteen years?!

This brings me to a fear I have about assisted suicide acceptance. Will it be a disincentive for research into cures and improvements to treatments? After all, why invest millions of dollars into finding cures for diseases like MS or ALS when euthanasia or assisted suicide is so cheap and tidy?

Whenever I have confronted euthanasia advocates with the fact that physical pain relief can be virtually complete, they often switch to the position that they want the ability to decide the time and place of their own death. Alas! The real issue is not pain control rather control. If they can’t control the way their life is going then they want to control their death. Control.

That is hardly a reason to alter generations of societal moral consensus against killing the sick and disabled!

Equality: As ridiculous as it sounds, assisted suicide advocates will actually say that able-bodied people can commit suicide so why should Joe Shmoe be denied the same right just because he is too disabled to commit suicide. This is where clear language and clear thinking are critically important. Just because a healthy man can kill himself does not mean he has a right to kill himself. Society will try to stop him from hurting or killing himself. His loved ones may even intervene and put him in psychiatric care to prevent him from hurting himself. In cities all across Canada there are suicide hot lines meant to help prevent people from taking their own lives and get proper counselling.

Rational Suicide: Now that’s an oxymoron! The instinct to survive is natural. Committing suicide is not. Many people in psychiatric helping professions think that by definition, suicide is irrational.

In the first few years after I was diagnosed with MS, the disease was stripping me from being healthy and able-bodied to chronically sick and disabled; I was in constant danger of sinking beneath the waves of my circumstances and despairing of life. My grief was so profound, my heartache so sharp, my terror so intense – my thinking became clouded. I needed people to lift me up as valuable even when I ceased to value myself. I am so glad there was not a Jack Kevorkian around in the mid-1980s. I might have succumbed at a low point.

Quality of Life: People advocate euthanasia or assisted suicide when quality of life has been deemed to be too low. Whose standard will judge? The treating physician? The family of the sick person? The patient? Euthanasia/assisted suicide advocates usually say the patient decides. The problem is this: Quality of life is a moving target. What gave my life quality at 25 years of age is not what gives my life quality at 58 years of age. At what point do we stop the continuum for quality of life. At 25 years my quality of life revolved around being athletic and physically active with my family and enjoying an upwardly mobile career. After I was diagnosed (at the age of thirty) those things either stopped or were severely hampered.

In my grief, I did not understand that a time would come when love (not physical function) would define my standard for quality of life. In my early thirties, the joy of having grandchildren did not even cross my mind and yet today they are my joie de vivre! Some arbitrary cut-off point for quality of life would have stopped that joy before it was.

THE THREAT OF DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION

As was stated earlier, acceptance of assisted suicide and euthanasia will threaten people with disabilities. I fear it will compromise the extent of medical care offered to Canadians with severe disabilities or incurable conditions. In an era when strained provincial health budgets account for the lion’s share of governments’ spending, inexpensive euthanasia can become an attractive alternative to costly and prolonged treatments ― especially when cures are impossible. Many people with severe disabilities or incurable illnesses already feel they are a burden on others; they may see physician prescribed death as a way of freeing their loved ones – particularly as the practice becomes more entrenched.

I fear that easy euthanasia will increase cases deemed as futile care and increase DNR orders. When euthanasia or assisted suicide is readily accepted as a treatment option, will the care or the patient be seen as futile?

Quality of auxiliary hospital care is already dismal in many jurisdictions. Will physician prescribed death improve nursing home care? No. People warehoused in the worst of these miserable institutions may opt for death rather than abandonment. The proper answer is not assisted suicide, rather improvement to auxiliary care that demands to be considered as indispensable to inclusive community life. Inclusion.

Euthanasia or assisted suicide can be so attractive and easy. It is a cheap compassion that requires so little humanity from those who administer or prescribe it. Certain lives will ultimately be deemed as unworthy of life and ended with or without their consent. Guess who they will be? Moi, et les gens comme moi.

Sincerely,
Mark Davis Pickup
(I used my full name because there is another Mark Pickup who is a professor at the University of British Columbia.)


[1] Washington v. Glucksberg, 1997.
[2] Lewis Carroll, ALICES ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND & THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (London: Bloomsbury Books, 1994), p. 197.
[3] Dr. John Scott, “FEAR AND FALSE PROMISES: The Challenge of Pain in the Terminally Ill” in EUTHANASIA AND ASSISTED SUICIDE: The Current Debate , ed. Ian Gentles (Toronto: Stoddart Books, 1995), p. 96.

Farewell Foundation case rejected. BCCLA case is a recipe for elder abuse.

The Vancouver Sun reported that the case by the Farewell Foundation, a group in BC that is trying to legalize assisted suicide, was thrown-out by Justice Lynn Smith. The Farewell Foundation was attempting to legalize "Swiss style" assisted suicide in Canada, which means that they wanted the law to allow doctors and other people to be able to assist a suicide.

A couple of weeks ago, Justice Smith fast-tracked the case by the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA). The BCCLA is representing the family of Kay Carter, who died by assisted suicide at the Dignitas suicide center in January 2010, and Gloria Taylor, who lives with ALS. The BCCLA case is attempting to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, via the court, in Canada

Laura Kane, who wrote the article for the Vancouver Sun stated:

Justice Lynn Smith ruled the foundation did not have a strong enough case to challenge the law, saying anonymous members of the group must identify themselves in order to prove the law directly affects them.

However, Smith invited the group to apply to intervene in a parallel right-to-die case led by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

The Farewell Foundation for the Right to Die had argued that the law against assisting suicide — which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison — violates its members’ right to die with dignity in the future.

Of the group’s 117 members, only five were identified as plaintiffs in the case. One of the plaintiffs committed suicide in July.

Donnaree Nygard, lawyer for the federal attorney-general, argued the case was “hypothetical” because the plaintiffs were not facing criminal charges for assisted suicide.

Farewell Foundation lawyer Jason Gratl said the group attempted something new by challenging a law on behalf of anonymous members, and was unsuccessful.

“Justice Smith found that if the Farewell Foundation wished to bring a constitutional challenge, the members whose health is deteriorating must identify themselves,” he said.

Russel Ogden, a founding director of the Farewell Foundation, said he was encouraged by the invitation to intervene by Smith, who is also overseeing the BCCLA case.

“I would compare it to someone in a race who knocks over a hurdle,” Ogden said. “It hurts a bit, you lose a few seconds, but you’re still in the race. You don’t give up.”

If its application to intervene is approved by the court, the foundation would be able to advance many of the same arguments it would have presented in its challenge to the Criminal Code, Ogden said.

A party with intervener status may introduce evidence and cross-examine witnesses.

The BCCLA-led case was recently fast-tracked due to the failing health of plaintiff Gloria Taylor, 63, suffering from late-stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The trial is set to begin Nov. 15.

The case proposes a medical model that restricts the assisted-suicide procedure to medical professionals. The Farewell Foundation, on the other hand, advocates the Swiss model, in which right-to-die organizations oversee the procedure.

“Many of our members do not see this as a medical procedure, and do not want it to occur in a clinical setting,” Ogden said.

Francine Lalonde

Last year the Parliament of Canada rejected Bill C-384 that was sponsored by Francine Lalonde (BQ) which would have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide, by a vote of 228 to 59. Since then an all-party committee of members of parliament have been working on a report to suggest ways that Canada needs to improve its care in the areas of: Palliative Care, Suicide Prevention, Elder Abuse and Disability issues. The Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care will release their report in November 2011.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) is seeking intervener status in the BCCLA case. EPC expected that the Farewell Foundation case would be thrown out because it lacked standing in relation to how serious it is to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The Farewell Foundation case attempted to legalize, "Swiss style" assisted suicide while the BCCLA (Carter/Taylor) case is attempting to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide via the court.

The EPC recognizes that the laws that prohibit euthanasia and assisted suicide are designed to protect people in the most vulnerable time of their life.

The EPC rejects the concept that it is necessary to legalize euthanasia and/or assisted suicide in order to ensure a "death with dignity".

EPC also understands that societal attitudes will lead to people with disabilities being steered towards euthanasia and elders who are vulnerable or being abused by family members or care-givers will be subtly pressured to die. These people will not "freely choose" but rather they will be coerced into dying by others who the person has been manipulated by and who that elderly person is dependant upon.

BC Judge fast-tracks euthanasia and assisted suicide case in Canada

On August 4, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) reacted to the decision by Justice Lynn Smith, to fast-track the (Carter/Taylor) case which challenges Canada's laws that protect vulnerable people from euthanasia and assisted suicide. This update provides further information.

Justice Smith, agreed to fast-track a challenge to Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide laws by the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) who are representing Gloria Taylor and the family of Kay Carter, the (Carter/Taylor) case. The case will be heard starting on November 15, 2011.

Last year, Canada’s parliament rejected Bill C-384 that would have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide by a vote of 228 to 59. After losing the political debate, the right to die lobby is bringing their demand for legalized killing to the courts.

The BCCLA claims that euthanasia and assisted suicide can be legalized with strict safeguards.

A study, published in the CMAJ (May 2010) found that 32% of the euthanasia deaths in Belgium were done without request or consent. Another study published in the BMJ (Oct 2010) found that only 52.8% of the euthanasia deaths in Belgium were reported.

In Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, the overall suicide rate has climbed since 2000 and is now 35% higher than the national average. At the same time people, such as Barbara Wagner & Randy Stroup, who were denied medical treatment by the Oregon Health plan have been steered to accept assisted suicide.

The BCCLA launched the Carter case in April, 2011 claiming that Canada’s criminal code provisions that protect people, at the most vulnerable time of their life, from euthanasia and assisted suicide were unconstitutional.

The Carter case concerns the family of Kay Carter who accompanied their mother to Switzerland when she died by assisted suicide at the Dignitas suicide center.

The claim states that Kay Carter’s rights were violated by a law that prevented her from dying by euthanasia or assisted suicide in Canada. The claim also states that Lee Carter and Hollis Johnson broke the law by aiding, planning and possibly encouraging their mother to go to the Dignitas suicide center. Lee & Hollis stated that they could potentially be prosecuted by Canada’s assisted suicide law, that they consider to be unconstitutional.

Definitions:
The Carter/Taylor case is asking the court to legalize assisted suicide and what they refer to as “Consensual Physician-Assisted Death” (euthanasia). Consensual Physician-Assisted Death is defined as: the administration of medication or other treatment that intentionally brings about a patient’s death by the act of a medical practitioner. This definition means that they are asking the court to legalize euthanasia by consent.

The Carter/Taylor claim uses confusing definitions. It states: For the purpose of this claim, “physician assisted suicide” and “consensual physician-assisted death” will be defined as “physician-assisted death.” The media continues to refer to “physician-assisted death” as assisted suicide.

On June 28, 2011; the BCCLA launched an amendment to the Carter case by adding Gloria Taylor (63) to the statement of claim. Taylor, who lives with ALS, says that she wants to die by euthanasia or assisted suicide and the laws that prevent her from dying in this way are unconstitutional.

Taylor’s condition, as stated by the BCCLA, created a greater level of urgency for the case which was the reason that Justice Smith agreed to fast-track the case.

Taylor demanded that if the court could not make a timely decision that it should exempt Taylor and her doctor so that she could be killed by euthanasia or assisted suicide in a manner approved by the court.

To create even greater urgency to the case, the BCCLA demanded that if the court is not able to make a timely decision, that the court must pay all costs related to the case and the required care for Taylor.

In the meantime, “the Farewell Foundation case”, that is also attempting to legalize assisted suicide through the court, may go into legal limbo or be joined to the Carter/Taylor case.

The Carter/Taylor is a serious attempt to strike down Canada’s laws that protect its vulnerable citizens from euthanasia and assisted suicide.

EPC is seeking intervention status in the BCCLA (Carter/Taylor) court case. Our intervention application will decided by the Court this October.

Donations can be made to help EPC intervene in the Carter/Taylor case at: Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, Box 25033 London Ontario N6C 6A8 or online at: http://www.euthanasiaprevention.on.ca/Donations.htm