Alternatives to euthanasia

The following letter was published online on the National Post on November 1, 2016.

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Re: ‘Dad Got The Death He Wanted,’ Brian Hutchinson, Oct. 29.

I have a patient who is 92, lives alone, and is becoming more and more lonely and anxious as she gets frailer. Her son lives in another Canadian city, her daughter in the U.S. Her daughter and son-in-law looked around for a solution, and found a good one. They’re moving back to Canada, not ...

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ADOPTION OF BILL C-14: A LETTER TO THE DOCTORS

Dear colleagues and friends,

With the adoption of Bill C-14 last Friday, euthanasia and assisted suicide are now legal everywhere in Canada. Today, I would like to reach out to all physicians across the country: those I have come to know through trying together to prevent this terrible law from being adopted, and many more I don’t know but who share our disbelief that our government has decided to promote death as a solution to suffering. Many ...

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Rally in Ottawa: solidarity as a cure

The Ottawa rally opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide, organized by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, the Physicians Alliance against Euthanasia and Living with Dignity took place as planned, yesterday, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Hundreds of people had traveled to Ottawa, while a number of speakers took the stage both to denounce Bill C-14 and to reaffirm their opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

All speakers (spokespersons of human rights organizations, MPs and members of the Senate) reminded the federal government ...

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The federal government provides exemptions for murder, aiding suicide and administering poison

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 ...

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Protect the vulnerable

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 ...

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The Special Joint Committee promotes access to death over protection of the living

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 ...

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An extension for the Federal government and an exemption for Québec

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 ...

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The Quebec Court of Appeal judgment does not end the dispute

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 ...

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Provincial-Territorial Group seeks death on demand for all (even for children)

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 ...

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