The Euthanasia Deception documentary.

The Euthanasia Deception Documentary is available by ordering the DVD at info@epcc.ca or downloading it online at www.vulnerablefilm.com

“A thought-provoking, emotionally-gripping film that will impact hearts and minds. It effectively dismantles the fallacies of euthanasia proponents’ appeals to compassion and autonomy.” 

- Richard Weikart, Professor of History at California State University, Stanislaus, Author of The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life.

“Stunning documentary. No doubt this film will save lives and prevent the destruction of a large number of families." 

- Anne LeBlanc, Rochester, NY

There are two ways to view The Euthanasia Deception.

Purchase a DVD from the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition or View or download online at www.vulnerableflim.com

Purchase The Euthanasia Deception DVD for: $30 for 1 DVD, $100 for 4 DVD's or $200 for 10 DVD's (add HST to all orders).

Link to the trailer.

The Euthanasia Deception is also available to rent or purchase online at Vimeo On Demand. Detailed instructions: 

1. Go to the film’s Web site www.vulnerablefilm.com and click rent or download. 
2. Click "Rent or Download Here”. You will be directed to Vimeo On Demand. 
3. Scroll down and click on the version you wish: Canadian or International Version 
4. You will be asked to join Vimeo, a free service, with no obligation. 
5. You will be prompted to pay $3.00 CAD (or equivalent) for a 48 hour rental download or $30.00 to purchase a downloadable version of the film. Most credit cards or Paypal accepted.
6. Be sure to enter your email to receive updates. 
7. Enjoy the Euthanasia Deception documentary!

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) in association with DunnMedia is pleased to announce the International release of The Euthanasia Deception, complete with interactive website and resource materials at: www.vulnerablefilm.com. 

The fifty-two minute documentary features powerful testimonies from Belgium and Canada, exposing the three main deceptions used by the assisted dying lobby:

• Euthanasia & assisted suicide are falsely promoted as compassion or mercy.
• Euthanasia & assisted suicide are falsely promoted as a form of autonomy. 
• The myth that safeguards can protect people is exposed. 

The Euthanasia Deception documentary is also available to be ordered with French subtitles.

The Euthanasia Deception features; 

• Professor Tom Mortier, a Belgian man whose depressed mother died by euthanasia,
• Dr Catherine Dopchie, a palliative physician in Belgium,
• Dr Benoit Beusselinck, a Belgian oncologist and palliative care doctor in Belgium,
• Carine Brochier, the co-ordinator of the European Institute of Bioethics in Belgium,
• Professor Etienne Montero, Dean of the Faculty of Law, Namur Belgium,
• Hendrik Reitsma's grand-dad died an assisted death with no request in the Netherlands,
• Kristina Hodgetts, a nurse speaks about her experience with assisted death in Canada,
• Lionel Roosemont, a Belgian man who is the father of a significantly disabled child,
• Amy Hasbrouck, a lawyer and a disability rights leader in Québec Canada,
• Mark Pickup, a disability rights activist and public speaker in Alberta Canada,
• Steven Passmore, a disability rights activist in Ontario Canada,
• Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

We are all vulnerable at different times in our lives. This documentary is a dire warning for Canada and the rest of the world.

Your donations to EPC enable us to continue our commitment to resisting the acceptance of euthanasia while providing jurisdictions with data to prevent its legalization.

Purchase The Euthanasia Deception by (paying $30 + HST by credit card or paypal) or order by email: info@epcc.ca or call toll free: 1-877-439-3348.

Disability advocate: Abandoned, neglected and brokenhearted after Canadian Assisted Death decision

Right Honourable Justin Trudeau

Prime Minister of Canada

November 17 2015

“Abandoned, Neglected, brokenhearted I am left crying myself to sleep” - What the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Carter case has meant to me and many other Canadians.”

Dear Prime Minister

When I was a child my family placed me in a “home” for kids like me – I had disabilities because of cerebral palsy. Over the course of my six years stay I felt totally abandoned by my family. One question would often fill my thoughts, “does anyone really care?” In the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Carter, decriminalizing euthanasia and physician assisted suicide, I feel that same abandonment and again the question circles my mind after all these years – “does anyone really care?”

I have been abandoned by several key sectors of society -  among these are, the Canadian Supreme Court, the Canadian Government, Canadian Law, the Canadian Medical Association, the Church in Canada and the Canadian Media.

You may ask why a sense of abandonment and this would be my answer. These sectors were my life supports on which, I knew as a Canadian living with disabilities, I could depend upon to look after me, uphold my rights, to life, to support, care and protection. Now I fear that my "life supports" have been "turned off."

Now with the Supreme Court decision in Carter, I have lost my confidence in these institutions to protect me. I was told recently, “Steven you should not go to the doctor alone – make sure you have someone to go with you.” So what am I left to do – who will hold my hand? The sense of abandonment, my sense of grief and disappointment is so palpable it is like a yoke on my shoulders. Where do I go now, to whom do I speak?

I want to live even though some people may not find my life worth living. I am grateful to all of the key sectors that I mentioned for the life I have had so far. But when the law allows physicians to kill patients and those with consciences are forced to kill or pressured out of medicine. When people who want to kill themselves are exulted in the media to the point where we change the law and the voice of those of us who wish to live is disregarded and silenced – what am I to think?

Over the last 25 years, I have spoken about three key issues facing people with disabilities, equality, value and acceptance. I have tried to communicate to all Canadians that these three things must be protected under Canadian law to keep us all safe. People like me have always known that we were just tolerated, not really accepted, had no value and no equality in the eyes of many Canadians. Society built us ramps to buildings but not to Canadian hearts.

The Supreme Court judgement, added to the betrayal and neutrality of key sectors of society that has reinforced the concept of out of sight, out of mind,  and now out of the way!

That is why I feel so deeply abandoned because the Carter decision proves I have no equality no value or acceptance. If my choice to live can be circumvented, in my best interests of course - where is my autonomy? Who gave anyone the right to take away my autonomy?Choices are made for me every day. Where I may live, how much money I receive and now finally, with these changes, when I will die.

They will provide various reasons, such as economics, dependency, pain and suffering or quality of life and then they will decide. Society will decide for me, based on what it thinks not what I think. After all Canadian society knows what is best for me – who would want to live like Steven anyway. I shout but no one wants to hear. The Carter ruling establishes two types of Canadians, those upon whom we confer equality, value and acceptance and those, like me, to whom they will be withheld.

There is great talk about being more inclusive, a kinder and gentler Canada – is that just rhetoric – or does that really include the elderly, disabled the marginalized? Or have we become so cold that we will no longer provide the essentials of human life, the supports needed like health care and financial aid to those who require such assistance. I feel as though I need to apologize for being born with a disability, as though somehow it is my fault.

Someone recently said that because the government is our provider the key sectors of society do not want to look after us anymore. Why give him healthcare? Why provide for or assist him we certainly do not want to extend his future? Is this because I am different, because I need a hand, a lift up?

What we are about to do, allowing physicians to kill patients or helping them to commit suicide, is so dangerous, so horrific, so detrimental to Canadian values.

It is said that how a nation treats its most vulnerable is the measure of that nation. Please speak up for my right to live. Our future as Canadians must include the vulnerable and marginalized. As a man living with disabilities I have no voice, and unless I want to kill myself I am closed out of Canadian media. Please ensure that all Canadians have a future – protect us from those doctors who will kill us, protect us from the media which asks you who would want to live like them? Defend us from the law which has been turned upside down and from government which threatens refusal to protect our lives.

Whatever happened to Canada the good? I am on a ledge right now will Canada pull me back or push me off?

Forever committed to making a stronger and more inclusive Canada and an advocate for the marginalized.

Yours sincerely,

Steven Passmore

404- 165 Queen Street South

Hamilton, Ontario L8P 4R3

(905) 529-9689

Previous articles by Steve Passmore:

• Supreme court is wrong on assisted suicide.
• Euthanasia undermines protections in law for me.
• People with disabilities are not disposable.
• I am concerned about my safety if euthanasia and assisted suicide were legal in Canada.

Disability advocate: Supreme court is wrong on assisted suicide.

This letter was published in the Hamilton Spectator on March 3, 2015.

By Steven Passmore

As a person living with a disability, I am deeply concerned with the Supreme Court of Canada ruling, which struck down Canada's laws protecting me from assisted suicide. As a non-elected body, the Supreme Court has made a bad decision which will negatively affect all 35 million Canadians.

We are a nation that prides itself on democracy. In April, 2010, Parliament defeated an assisted suicide bill by a vote of 228 to 59. That was a pretty strong consensus. Nine Supreme Court Justices should not be able to overrule 308 members of parliament (MPs).

In Canada, does democracy still rule?

The Supreme Court of Canada has overstepped its mandate; the justices should have upheld the law and not struck down our current law. I would urge Parliament to use the notwithstanding clause to overrule the Supreme Court of Canada's decision on the basis of democracy.

Steven Passmore, Hamilton, Advocate for Persons with Disabilities and Board Member of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Euthanasia undermines protection in law for me.

By Steven Passmore - The Hamilton Spectator, April 23, 2014.

Steve Passmore met with
Steven Fletcher in 2009.

After significant reflection concerning Steven Fletcher’s response to my letter about his euthanasia bills, I find it interesting that he stated that my concerns about his motives are ridiculous.

When I was younger I had several very painful surgeries. If someone had asked me, while I was in severe pain, if I wanted to die, I would have said Yes. When I am at a low point in my life, I do not want someone questioning me about whether I should live.

Fletcher’s euthanasia bills undermine protections in law for me.

Fletcher states that his bills will “empower competent adults to make decisions for themselves based on their own values and ethics.”

His bills actually empower physicians and the state to kill people by euthanasia.

People with disabilities, people with Alzheimer’s/Dementia, people with cognitive disabilities, are all at risk by Fletcher’s bills. Fletcher speaks about choice, but these people are dependent on others to make decision for them.

In Belgium a recent study found that people withAlzheimer’s/Dementia or in coma were often being killed without request, and yet the Belgium law has the same – supposed safeguards – as Fletcher’s bills.

In Switzerland the assisted death groups haveestablished themselves in nursing homes. Once assisted death becomes a legal option it also becomes an ever present suggestion.

Legalizing euthanasia does not create greater rights for people with disabilities and the frail elderly but rather it will often lead to the death of vulnerable people.

Steven Passmore

Hamilton Ontario

Links to similar articles: 

- People with disabilities don't want your pity and we don't want your death. 

- People with disabilities are not disposable. 

- People with disabilities protest Bill C 384.

People with disabilities don't want your pity and we don't want euthanasia.

The following letter was published by the Hamilton Spectator on April 15, 2014.

Sign the Declaration of Hope to oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Steve Passmore protesting
euthanasia bill in 2009.

By Steve Passmore

I was born with cerebral palsy and I have lived all of my life with pain. I now have scoliosis which affects my mobility and gives me further pain. My prognosis is living with a wheelchair.

Steven Fletcher MP has introduced euthanasia bills with language that specifically focuses on people with disabilities because his bills are about him dying by euthanasia.

Fletcher is saying that he does not value his life, but I value my life and the lives of others with disabilities. His “right to die” ends at the point where it affects other people. Don’t take me down with your death wish.

As a member of parliament, Fletcher has the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of people with disabilities, to work towards improving social supports and living opportunities, but his euthanasia bills say that our lives are not worth living.

People with disabilities are at risk from euthanasia because they are often dependent on others who legally have the right to make decisions for them. Any legislation that lessens protections in law for people with disabilities is very concerning.

I have overcome many physical and social barriers in my life, I am busy wanting to live, but Fletcher’s bill directly affects my right to live.

People with disabilities, who live with a positive mind-set, show society how to overcome challenges. We see these challenges as opportunities for personal growth.

Fletcher wants your pity. People with disabilities don’t want your pity and we don’t want your death.

The concept of euthanasia creates great fear for me. Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide abandons me as a person. That society would rather help me die with dignity, than help me live with dignity.

We will fight for the right of people with disabilities to live with equality, value and acceptance.

Steven Passmore
Hamilton Ontario

Links to similar articles:
People with disabilities are not disposable.
People with disabilities protest Bill C 384.

Dr Low: The concept of euthanasia creates great fear for me.

Steve Passmore

The following letter was written by disability activist, Steve Passmore, and published in the National Post and the Hamilton Spectator.

In his video, Dr. Donald Low said that if I were to live in his body for 24 hours, I would change my mind on assisted death.

I was born with cerebral palsy and I have lived all of my life with pain. My condition is deteriorating. I now have scoliosis which has given me further pain and my prognosis is living with a wheelchair. I have a hernia, but because it isn't permanent I don't qualify to receive help to clean my apartment. Living with a disability also means that I have experienced discrimination.

Most people with disabilities generally live with pain, suffering and social isolation.

Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide is an abandonment of me as a person, that society would rather help me die, than help me live. The concept of euthanasia creates great fear for me. The answer is not legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide but rather improving social supports.

I only have one life. I choose to live. Society needs to ensure life with dignity, not death with dignity.

Steve Passmore, Hamilton Ontario

The following letter was written by Steve Passmore and published in the Hamilton Spectator on October 4, 2013 in response to a letter entitled: Allow me to choose how long I live (Hamilton Spectator Letters, Sept. 28, 2013)

Assisted Suicide risks Abuse

I deeply regret the pain and suffering the letter writer is going through. I would do anything that I could to help her.

But her opinion can't put the rest of us at risk, and it will. Legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide enables others, usually doctors, to be involved with causing death. The choice will not only be ours, but it will also be someone else's.

In Belgium, a study found that as many as 32 per cent of the euthanasia deaths were done without request. Abuses will happen and people will be subtly pressured.

I understand how difficult this is for the letter writer, but she must understand how euthanasia will affect people with disabilities and ultimately all of us.

I will continue stand up for the community of people with disabilities.

Steve Passmore, Hamilton Ontario

Links to similar articles:

• People with disabilities are not disposable.
• I am concerned about my safety if euthanasia and assisted suicide were legal in Canada.
• Persons with disabilities protest Bill C-384.

People with disabilities are not Disposable.

The following letter was published on August 21, 2013 in the National Post and the Hamilton Spectator.

Steve Passmore

By Steve Passmore

Growing up with Cerebral Palsy, I know for a fact that negative attitudes towards people with disabilities, such as myself have always existed.

I remember overhearing, when I was 14, someone saying: 

“how he walks makes me sick.” 

When I enter a room, people feel uncomfortable.

In the same way the letter stated that Maxwell made her children feel uncomfortable.

When I was in my 30’s and talking to someone about an issue, I was told that because I was disabled that my opinion didn’t matter.

I face an underlying prejudice from people in society.

The only way to make a difference in society is to address the elephant in the room which is the underlying prejudice toward people with disabilities.

There is a prevalent attitude within society that I and other people with disabilities are disposable.

We will never have equality, value and acceptance unless the underlying attitude of discrimination is eliminated within society.

The comments made by the woman in the letter are comments that would not be made publicly but represent the views of many people in our culture.

These attitudes towards people with disabilities lead to the support for euthanasia and assisted suicide within society and therefore these prejudices cannot be swept under the rug anymore because it will lead to the death of people with disabilities.

Society has created access to institutions and services for people with disabilities. The letter writer states that as a hard working person:

"I hate people like you ... just because you have a special needs kid you are entitled to special treatment"

I regularly experience this type of resentment in my life.

In the past, people with disabilities were institutionalized. Now we are living in the community. Because we are visible in society and demanding equality, many people resent people with disabilities.

It is not my pain and suffering that people want to eliminate, it is theirs, because they feel uncomfortable with people with disabilities, even to look upon us. 

This is a human rights issue.

We need the media to produce programming that exposes the elephant in the room.

I would like to thank the media for bringing this story to the attention of the public.

Steve Passmore is a disability activist who lives in Hamilton Ontario

Link to: Family receives letter telling them to euthanize Autistic son.

I am concerned about my safety if euthanasia and assisted suicide were legal in Canada:

Steve Passmore on
Parliament hill

By Steve Passmore, a disability rights activist who lives in Hamilton Ontario. Steve is also a member of the EPC advisory board.

This article was originally printed on the blog - Context with Lorna Dueck under the catagory - If Assisted Suicide was legal in Canada.

On Friday, June 15, Justice Lynn Smith in Vancouver BC, decided in the Carter case, to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide. She decided that the current laws that prohibit assisted suicide infringe upon the Charter of Rights and Freedoms section that ensures that my life, liberty and security of the person is protected in Canadian law.

Smith not only got it wrong, her decision is the opposite of reality.

I have lived my life as a person with Cerebral Palsy. My experience as a person with a visible disability is that people do not treat me with equality value and acceptance.

As a child I experienced more than a dozen surgeries. These surgeries were incredibly difficult, but they gave me a chance to live.

I now have a scoliosis, a curvature of the spine, and I suffer with pain everyday. If suffering becomes a reason for euthanasia, then I will fear for my life.

I have been involved with opposing euthanasia since the death of Tracy Latimer in 1993. I am an advocate who opposes euthanasia because I love vulnerable people. Many people with disabilities, like Tracy Latimer are vulnerable and lack a voice. I have a voice.

Justice Smith stated in her decision that she found “no evidence of inordinate impact on vulnerable populations.”

Justice Smith must have been very selective in her research because she obviously missed the study from the Canadian Medical Association Journal (May 2010) that found that 32% of euthanasia deaths in the Flanders region of Belgium were without request or consent.

In Oregon the assisted suicide law contains a provision to safe-guard physicians who practice assisted suicide. The provision states that no person will be subject to any form of legal liability, whether civil or criminal if they act in good faith. In an ironic twist, assisted suicide physicians in Oregon are safer from liability if they cause a patients’ death than if they provide his or her medical treatment.

I am convinced that if euthanasia becomes accepted by society, that over a short period of time the attitudes will go from voluntary euthanasia for people who suffering to euthanasia to end the lives of the sufferer.

When euthanasia was legalized in the Netherlands, it was supposed to be a rare event to be resorted to only in the most unusual cases of intolerable suffering. The guidelines were designed specifically to keep euthanasia occurrences few and far between by establishing demanding conditions that had to be met at the risk of criminal prosecution.

Over time however, the conditions began to be interpreted loosely and they were ignored. Rather than being rare euthanasia has become a routine medical practice.

I have always thought that our greatest need was visibility, to be seen and heard. Although those are great needs there is a greater need and that is for people to listen to us.

We need a society that recognizes people with disabilities as having equality, value and acceptance, but we first need a society that recognizes the importance of protecting our right to live.

Taking Mercy - the case for euthanizing children with disabilities.

Tracy Latimer

Taking Mercy is an edition of the 16 x 9 shown on Global TV in Canada concerning a mother, Annette Corriveau, who wants her children with disabilities to be killed by euthanasia. The show also features Robert Latimer, the man who killed his daughter Tracy in 1993. Tracy had Cerebral Palsy. The show speaks to pro-euthanasia ethicist Arthur Schaefer who suggests that Robert Latimer should have been given “mercy”. Schaefer also suggests that Corriveau should simply stop feeding her children, but Corriveau does not wish to starve her children to death. This is a dangerously one-sided show.

Taking Mercy represents the first serious attempt by the Canadian media to re-write the history of the Latimer case and to justify euthanasia for children with disabilities. 

Yesterday I received an email from Ari Ne'eman, a disability leader in the United States, who is asking people with disabilities to organize candle light vigils on March 30 at 5:30pm for Disabled people who have been murdered by relatives or care-givers. 

Today I spoke to Steve Passmore, a man who was born with Cerebral Palsy, who has actively opposed euthanasia and assisted suicide since Tracy Latimer was killed by her father. 

Steve Passmore

Steve stated: "Many people in society view people with disabilities as having lives that can be euthanized, like a kept pet, because of pain and suffering, that he lives with everyday." 

Steve wants Robert Latimer & Annette Corriveau to know that he is not the same as a 'kept pet'. He stated that: "this story clearly shows the prejudice that people with disabilities experience in society and the threat that euthanasia and assisted suicide place on the lives of people with disabilities."

Comment by: Alex Schadenberg 

Taking Mercy is produced by Jennifer Tryon, Hannah James, Megan Rowney, for 16x9 and it was shown on Global TV on Thursday, March 08, 2012. Link to the show. Link to the Live Blog.

This is how the story goes:

Annette Corriveau thought she was living the dream. Married at 18, two beautiful children born shortly after, she thought she had it all.

But Annette’s dream was ravaged by fate. Her babies, Janet and Jeffrey weren’t as healthy as they first appeared. And never could she have imagined the horrific turn her children's lives would take.

“They were a handful but I thought that was normal, after all, they were only a year apart,” she says. “You’re prepared for the terrible twos. So you overlook things. Then the threes come and you’re thinking wait a minute, this shouldn’t have lasted this long, and then the fours, all of a sudden, it’s, something is not right.”
When Janet and Jeffrey were five and six years old, their behaviour was becoming more rambunctious and unmanageable. They started losing the language they had developed and they were losing motor skills.

After a year and a half in a London, Ontario hospital Annette learned she and her husband both carried a recessive gene that prevented their children from properly metabolizing sugars. The children were diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Sanfilippo syndrome that has no cure and no treatment.

Now, more than three decades later, Annette wants the right to mercifully end her children’s lives.

“They wouldn’t like to live like this,” she says. “My children were full of life. When they were young, before this disease took hold…I just don’t believe that they would want to stay alive the way they are.”

Annette’s children have been institutionalized since they were seven and eight years old. They used to be well enough to come home on weekends but they haven’t left their current care facility in two decades.
Now, more than three decades later, Annette wants the right to mercifully end her children’s lives.

“They wouldn’t like to live like this,” she says. “My children were full of life. When they were young, before this disease took hold…I just don’t believe that they would want to stay alive the way they are.” 

Annette’s children have been institutionalized since they were seven and eight years old. They used to be well enough to come home on weekends but they haven’t left their current care facility in two decades. 

Annette says no one can understand unless they watch - as she did - as her children slowly succumbed to this rare genetic disorder.

“The saying, ‘walk in another man’s moccasins’? Don’t judge. Unless you’ve been there, don’t judge,” she says. “This is no life. For anyone.” 

In a 16x9 exclusive, a mother’s plea for mercy – and a father who has been down this road before – and paid the price. 16x9 opens up the debate on the controversial subject of euthanasia speaking to Annette Corriveau about her fight for mercy and to Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan farmer who fought the Supreme Court of Canada after he ended his severely disabled daughter’s life.

As much as we can never take these cases lightly, the fact is that Janet & Jeffrey Corriveau are being cared for and allowing their mother to decide to have them killed by euthanasia will create a whole new debate which would focus on who lives and who dies.

Corriveau emphasizes in the show that no one should judge, but the fact is that this is a question of who society will approve to kill and that effects everyone. We don't need to judge Corriveau in order to say NO to the killing people by euthanasia.

Further to that, so many people say that euthanasia is about "choice" and has little or nothing to do with people with disabilities, the Corriveau story should awaken people to the reality that "choice" is the banner that is used to open the door to euthanasia. Soon after we will then begin deciding who lives and who dies, in the same way as the Netherlands has accepted the Groningen Protocol which are the rules that must be following in order to euthanize children with disabilities.

Join Steve Passmore's on Nov. 16 as he protests Bill C-384

Bill C-384 was introduced by Bloc MP Francine Lalonde on May 13, 2009 to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada. This was her third attempt to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide with her previous two attempts dying on the order paper, without going to a vote, after elections were called.

On October 2, C-384 received its first hour of debate. C-384 is tentatively scheduled to receive its second hour of debate on Nov 16and it is tentatively scheduled to be voted-on at second reading on Nov 18.

Steve Passmore, a disability rights advocate who was born with cerebral palsy, will be protesting C-384 near the steops on parliament hill while it is being debated in the house on Monday November 16. His protest will go from 10:30 am to 12:30 (noon).

Passmore protested the first hour of debate of on October 2nd and is hoping that many people with disabilities and others will join his protest of C-384.

We expect that C-384 will be defeated by a significant margin. We are not resting. We need to continue putting pressure on MP’s in order to ensure that we strongly defeat C-384.

People with disabilities protest Bill C-384

Mark Warawa MP with
Steve Passmore

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

On Friday October 2, 2009; Steve Passmore, a man who was born with Cerebral Palsy arrived at Parliament Hill at 12:30 pm to protest Bill C-384. Passmore was innundated by the media, including the CBC and many other reporters representing newspapers and news outlets in Canada. Mark Warawa MP came over to greet Passmore and to assure him that he will be voting against Bill C-384 because the bill threatens the lives of people with disabilities.

Even though the media interviewed Steve Passmore -  why did they completely black-out covering the Bill C-384 debate and the protest by Steve Passmore, a man with a life-long disability?

I am convinced that since the debate in parliament didn't go well for Bloc MP Francine Lalonde and since Steve Passmore understands the issue very well and has experience speaking about euthanasia. The media probably ignored Steve Passmore's message because they would rather report on a  person with a sad and emotionally moving story who supports euthanasia so they can make that story the issue.

The story line concerning the lack of support for Lalonde's third attempt to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide and the effective comments by Passmore doesn't fit within the framework that the media wants for Canadians.

I wish the media would honestly present the news rather than attempting to create news, and that is why I think that Passmore and Lalonde experienced a media blackout.

The following is the media release from Thursday October 1, 2009.

LONDON, ON, Oct. 1 /CNW/ - Steve Passmore, a person with a disability, will voice his opposition to Bill C-384 - the bill that would legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide - and that represents a threat to persons with disabilities.

Mr. Passmore will be available for media interviews near the front steps of Parliament hill, Ottawa, from 12:30 - 3 pm on Friday, October 2.

His protest is based on the fact that Bill C-384 directly threatens his life and the lives of people with disabilities.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is a broadly based network of groups and individuals working to create an effective social barrier to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and the Council of Canadians with Disabilities recognize that Bill C-384 directly threatens the lives of people with disabilities.

Doctors and people with disabilities oppose Bill C-384

The CBC has reported on the press conference that was held at the parliamentary press gallery this morning by Dr. Jose Pereira and Dr. Jean Bartkowiak.

is particularly unique because of his experience as a palliative care professional in Switzerland where he came into personal contact with legal assisted suicide.

The CBC article is fairly good but it doesn't cover enough of the information that Pereira shared with the media about his personal experience but it does present his opposition to Bill C-384 in a very effective manner.

The article also mentions that Steve Passmore will be protesting Bill C-384 on parliament hill tomorrow while it is being debated in the house. Passmore, a man who was born with disabilities, rightly views Bill C-384 as threatening his life and the lives of other people with disabilities.

Link to the article: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2009/10/01/ottawa-euthanasia-bill-doctors-pereira.html

The Canadian Medical Association sent a letter to Members of Parliament today explaining why they oppose Bill C-384, the bill that would legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada. The message was straight forward and written for a general opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The following is the policy of the Canadian Medical Association on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide.
http://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/Policypdf/PD07-01.pdf