“No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority.”
Thomas Jefferson
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Discussion on physician autonomy at the 2014 and 2015 Canadian Medical Association (CMA) annual meetings highlighted an emerging issue of enormous importance: the contentious matter of freedom of conscience (FOC) within clinical practice.
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Montreal, April 15, 2016 – In the midst of one of the worst suicide crises in our country’s history, the federal government has tabled Bill C-14, which proposes to legalize both euthanasia and assisted suicide across Canada under the pseudonym “medical assistance in dying”. The waltz of words continues, as we malign palliative care by presenting “medical assistance in dying” as the only alternative to an agonizingly painful death.
From the outset, the bill makes clear the gravity of what our ...
Continue reading →Recent months have witnessed several sad and disappointing events for sick people in Canada. In Quebec it is now legal for a doctor to kill a patient who feels that he or she is suffering unbearably. We are aware of several deaths of patients under this law, including at least one who had a neurological disease and was not at the end of life as the law requires.
Last week, as you read in our mailing on Friday (>>) the Special ...
Continue reading →The citizen network Living with Dignity and the Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia have examined the report of the Special Joint Committee on Medical Aid in Dying, which recommends, among other things, that by 2019, health professionals relieve the suffering of children by helping them commit suicide. Excluded from the hearings, as were several other organizations concerned with the defense of vulnerable Canadians, LWD and the Alliance share the apprehensions of the authors of the dissenting report, who express their ...
Continue reading →On January 11, 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada gave the Government of Canada an extension of only four months (until June 2016) to formulate and adopt a law in keeping with the Carter decision, which allows assisted suicide in Canada. The Court also agreed to exempt Québec from the extension so that its euthanasia law can remain in effect. If the federal government does not legislate on the issue within this time, Canada’s assisted suicide law will be null ...
Continue reading →December 22, 2015 – The Quebec Court of Appeal declared that the Criminal Code provisions “that prohibit medical aid in dying cannot by themselves prevent the entry into force and implementation” of the provisions of the Act respecting end-of-life care related to medical aid in dying since they were declared invalid by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Carter decision (at para. 44). We take note of this decision but we still deplore this choice as an answer to ...
Continue reading →We read with dismay the final report of the Provincial-Territorial Advisory Group that was published on November 30. The 43 recommendations in the report clearly have no other goal than the unfettered promotion of euthanasia and assisted suicide throughout Canada. The report’s authors abandon all caution, make no attempt to prevent harm, and demolish all the safeguards, however minimal, that the Supreme Court of Canada included in the Carter decision, interpreting them all with the undisguised intention of mandating death ...
Continue reading →In a decision rendered yesterday, the Quebec Court of Appeal authorized the Government of Quebec to appeal the decision that the Superior Court rendered on December 1 declaring inoperative all the articles related to medical aid in dying until a federal law is written.
In yesterday’s judgment, after emphasizing the fact that to suspend the articles related to medical aid in dying would prevent some citizens from taking advantage of them, the appeal judge declared that it is an important social ...
Continue reading →In a decision rendered on December 1st, the Superior Court of Quebec calls to order the Quebec government that attempted to have “medical aid in dying” recognized as a medical care while in practice, as highlighted by the Court, it is indeed euthanasia of human beings.
Consequently, it declares inoperative all the articles of the Act respecting end-of-life care (the “Act“) related to “medical aid in dying” that were to come into force on December 10 until the effective date of ...
Continue reading →MONTREAL, Oct. 30, 2015 – The Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia, the Living with Dignity network and the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition are coming together for a one day conference on Saturday October 31, 2015 at the Best Western Ville Marie hotel, to discuss our common concerns and directions.
The Quebec euthanasia experiment is scheduled to begin on December 10. The vast majority of physicians around the world have always rejected euthanasia, above all because it ...
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