Author Archive

In recent issues of this Newsletter we have considered the dangers of different ongoing schemes for enlarging the qualifying criteria for euthanasia, to include people with dementia (by advance directive), “mature” minors (with or without parental consent or knowledge) and those for whom psychiatric illness is the sole underlying condition.

Unfortunately, by virtue of a challenge currently undertaken by Mr. Jean Truchon and Ms. Nicole Gladu before the Québec Superior Court, there is now something quantitatively much ...

There is something ironic and horrible in the notion that the first clear breach in the voluntariness of legal euthanasia – that all euthanasia be the result of a competent, capable choice – should be made in psychiatry.  For we are accustomed to trust psychiatry with the defense and arbitration of choice itself. It is psychiatrists who have specific expertise in studying the voluntary operation of the will: capable, competent and unconstrained.

One of the traditional cornerstones of the determination of ...

Dear friends,

The long-awaited report of the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) Expert Panel on MAID requests by mature minors, advance requests, and requests where a mental disorder is the sole underlying medical condition, was released on December 12, 2018.

The Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia was one of 59 groups that submitted testimony to the Panel.

The three reports (each extending to over 200 pages) propose a review of the state of knowledge on these three topics, and give no recommendations.

If you prefer to ...

Euthanasia (MAID) was originally sold to the public, and to our profession, as an extraordinary response to a request made by a competent adult whose death was at hand, and whose unbearable suffering could be relieved (so it was said) by no other means. But the intention to rapidly extend the practice of euthanasia well beyond those limits was evident from the beginning. Along with currently contested access for psychiatric conditions, by advance request and when natural death is not ...

Dear friends,

The aftermath of the World Medical Association (WMA) General Assembly in Iceland October 3 to 6, and the withdrawal of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) from the WMA, continues to evolve.

This week Canadian Associate Members of the WMA received a letter from Dr. Otmar Kloiber, the Secretary General of the WMA. It is being shared with his authorization. It can be read here.

Other commentators take many different angles on the events:

• CMA ANNOUNCEMENT 

Dear friends,

Perhaps the only news you’ve heard about the recent World Medical Association (WMA) General Assembly in Iceland was about the withdrawal of the Canadian Medical Association from the WMA.

Below is a bit more information, from Canadian doctors who were there.

Catherine Ferrier
President

Canadian Associate Members at the World Medical Association General Assembly

Reykjavik, Iceland, October 3-6, 2018

A number of concerned Canadian doctors became Associate Members (* see below) of ...

Even before the adoption of the laws permitting euthanasia in Quebec and Canada, which require that it be requested by a capable adult, the pressure to extend it to incapable persons was looming. This possibility is now being considered by an advisory panel to the Canadian government (Council of Canadian Academies), and the recently elected political party in Quebec (Coalition Avenir Québec; CAQ) made it part of their platform in the recent provincial election. A group of researchers ...