The Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia wishes to express its astonishment at the Quebec government’s recklessness in the face of the reality experienced by sick, vulnerable and suffering people in our society who are not necessarily at the end of their lives.
In a decision handed down on September 11, 2019 in the Truchon and Gladu case, the Quebec Superior Court invalidated the “end of life” criterion and its federal counterpart “reasonably foreseeable natural death” as a condition of access to medical aid in dying.
On January 21, 2020, Ministers McCann and LeBel announced that in Quebec, after March 11, 2020, the end-of-life criterion will no longer be necessary to provide access to medical aid in dying to any capable adult who meets the other conditions for access to medical aid in dying: be suffering from a serious and incurable disease, have a medical situation characterized by an advanced and irreversible decline in his or her capacities, and experience constant, unbearable physical or mental suffering that cannot be alleviated under conditions that he or she deems tolerable. As all these conditions are wide open to the subjective interpretation of the patient, a large number of sick and unhappy people will henceforth be eligible to have their lives terminated by a doctor.
This fundamental change would be made without any amendment to the Act respecting end-of-life care, without the approval of the National Assembly, even though debates over several years had led to the adoption of the end-of-life criterion as an essential condition, and without any other safeguards being proposed to protect vulnerable persons. As announced last week there would have been no public consultation at all; under pressure from all sides, Minister McCann has now announced a delay to allow for reflection and consultation for the question of euthanasia for mental illness.
Is it recklessness on the part of this government or an abdication of responsibility? Why, once again, is there such a rush to act without having seriously considered the irreversible consequences of this change, while choosing to ignore the alarm signals raised by people with disabilities, the group that is primarily targeted by this change?
This radical shift would take place in the context of a lack of necessary medical, psychiatric and social resources and a lack of access to simple supportive measures to enable independent living with a disability.
What are we going to do?
How are we going to ensure psychiatric care for all people with mental illness, so that their suicidal thoughts do not lead to a request for medical aid in dying?
What do we do for disabled young people who request medical aid in dying because of poverty, lack of housing and lack of employment, or because they are forced to live in a CHSLD?
What are we going to do for the young athlete whose life is turned upside down following a serious accident and who asks to die without taking the time to adjust to his or her condition, as most of his or her peers do over time?
What are we going to do for people suffering from chronic pain, who have to wait two years for an appointment at a specialized pain clinic, which will undoubtedly be able to help them?
What are we going to do for the elderly who are so lonely that they want to die? They often have numerous diagnoses to justify their request, without it being the real reason.
What are we going to do about the “difficult” patients who return frequently to emergency departments and clinics because no one has yet found a solution to their problem, for all sorts of reasons?
While the federal government is consulting experts and the public about the great precautions to be taken if a person who is not at the end of life asks for medical aid in dying, the Quebec government is advancing blithely into an unknown minefield, where many patients who could have lived for a long time with good care are at risk of asking for death.
The Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia is therefore asking the Quebec government to add serious safeguards to the law in order to offer protection to all the people for whom it will henceforth be easier to seek medical aid in dying than to have access to the support they need to live.