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The External Panel on Options for a Legislative Response to Carter v. Canada (euthanasia and assisted-suicide) has announced that it is suspending direct consultations during the election period and that it will resume direct consultations, as soon as practical, following the election on October 19th, 2015. The Panel has also announced its intention to continue a passive approach to consultation during the election period. This means that the web site (www.ep-ce.ca) will continue to receive submissions and the on-line consultation ...

The website for the expert panel on assisted suicide and euthanasia is now public. They announce several upcoming consultation methods which will be made available soon. We urge you to go on the site and leave your details to receive the relevant information once these consultation methods are made available.

Important links:

• Consultation site: http://ep-ce.ca/en/home
• To receive notifications about the consultation: http://ep-ce.ca/en/home/#email_signup

The site advises that the consultations will target 4 fundamental questions:

• Different forms ...

A new campaign was launched to ask the federal government to invoke the notwithstanding clause to give Parliament more than a year to develop effective physician-assisted suicide legislation. See the campaign on the Give Us Time site.

The Physicians’ Alliance fully supports this campaign and encourages you to participate.

All you have to do is print, sign and mail the postcard. If you aren’t in a position to print the card, we can send you ...

As you know, in July 2014 Living with Dignity and the Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia filed a motion in the Superior Court, District of Montreal, to seek to have declared invalid all the provisions of An Act concerning end-of-life care dealing with "medical aid in dying".

Following the catastrophic decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Carter legalising physician-assisted suicide, and as we do not know how the federal government will react, we ...

The Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada (CMDS) filed a lawsuit against a new College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) policy which infringes upon Ontario doctors’ freedom of conscience. The Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia supports the CMDS’ efforts in this matter. The issue of freedom of conscience is an important factor in assisted suicide and euthanasia.

The new CPSO policy would require a physician to make formal referrals or ...

For the Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia, it is particularly important in the current context to ensure the right of physicians not only to refuse to commit acts of euthanasia or assisted suicide themselves, but also to ensure the right to refuse to become actors in a chain leading to such acts, if they consider them harmful both to patients directly affected and to vulnerable populations.

On the one hand, the committing an indirect act ...

Once more, it is time to act on the issue of assisted suicide. Write to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Justice Minister Peter MacKay, as well as to your MP, to ask them to use the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to counter the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Carter case.

As you probably know, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously decided that in certain circumstances physiacian-assisted ...

A majority of the members of the Canadian Medical Association have taken position against euthanasia during consultations held during winter and spring. At the same time, they emphasized the inadequacy of palliative care services in Canada.

This was reported by the Association in a report entitled End of Life Care, a National Dialogue, released in July.

The CMA conducted several meetings in different parts of Canada and created a website for members to comment on various end-of-life care issues. Attendance at the ...

Dr. Donald Boudreau and Margaret Somerville: The Incompatibility of Euthanasia with Medicine. “Euthanasia is incompatible with medicine”, state Dr. Donald Boudreau and ethicist Margaret Somerville in a joint article published in July in the Journal Medicolegal and Bioethics.

The two experts from McGill University offer reflections of a multifaceted ethical nature. Here are some in summary:

• Euthanasia contradicts the fundamental role of the physician, which is to heal. This role, they argue, cannot be exercised in a strictly technical sense, as it ...

In the Ottawa Citizen on June 30, Dr. Rene Leiva wrote, “the sense of dignity comes first and foremost from the patient’s loved ones”.

For Dr. Leiva, who works in palliative care and care for the elderly, the ongoing debate on death “with dignity” too often misses the essential point by leading people to believe that dignity at end-of-life sometimes requires euthanasia.

The real answer lies elsewhere, he wrote. “The experience of many, including mine, is that the presence of a loved ...