Euthanasia and assisted suicide would become legal in Canada if Bill C-384 is passed by Parliament. The Bill will receive second reading on February 2 and be voted on in the House of Commons, February 3.

Bill C-384 violates the principle that every life has value and is to be protected until natural death. As explained in detail by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition:

• It establishes intentional killing as a treatment option for people whose health problems can be solved or managed by effective, compassionate care.
• It changes the relationship of trust between medical practitioner and patient.

People who support this principle are not unsympathetic to the plight and pain of people in serious illness, to the disabled or to the elderly. Palliative care and the proper use of pain-killing medications are the truly caring alternatives to the despair of suicide or euthanasia.

Disabled people are offended by proposals of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Disability rights activist Steven Passmore, who was born with cerebral palsy, has asked: “Will society be willing to care for people with disabilities or will they decide that it simply costs too much?”

Bill C-384 is dangerous.

Bill C-384 lacks safeguards against abuse.

• It does not limit euthanasia or assisted-suicide to the terminally ill and it does not define “terminal illness.” It opens euthanasia or assisted-suicide to people who are suffering from treatable depression or other mental condition.
• It measures the competency of a person to make a decision on euthanasia or assisted-suicide based on the person “appearing to be lucid”, which does not assure that the individual is actually lucid. 
• Although it requires all requests for euthanasia or assisted-suicide to be made free of duress, it contains no assurances or protection from duress. (The “right to die” becomes a “duty to die.”)
• It would require the medical practitioner to inform the individual of all alternative treatments for the person’s health condition, but does not require treatments to be tried. 
• It would require a medical practitioner to confirm the diagnosis of the condition suffered by the person who had requested death, but to a coroner after the person’s death. This protects the medical practitioner from prosecution but not a patient from being put to death.

Bill C-384 is unnecessary.

Bill C-384 is unnecessary as a means to relieve suffering, and it could make palliative care less available.

• The goal of palliative care is to relieve pain and reduce the fear of pain sometimes associated with dying and drives people to accept euthanasia as the only available option. “Palliative care has demonstrated to the world that the pain and other symptoms of advanced disease can be relieved. The methods to relieve suffering are available now.” John M. Scott, M.D., “Cancer Pain: a Monograph on the Management of Cancer Pain,” Health and Welfare Canada, Ottawa, 1984 (Cat. No. H4225).
• If euthanasia and assisted suicide were legalized, less money would be spent to provide palliative care. “If euthanasia were an alternative then the imperative to provide the resources for these people, whether it is in the education of doctors in pain control or provision of decent facilities for elderly people with physical illness, would be cut at a stroke.” Royal College of Nurses, testimony to the Select Committee on Medical Ethics, quoted in the Report of the Select Committee on Medical Ethics, House of Lords, Great Britain, Session 199394, January 31, 1994, p.26.
• Anyone under the current law has the right to refuse medical treatment that might prolong life. If a person is incompetent to make the decision, it is legal and ethical for family to ask for such treatment, such as a ventilator, to cease. This is not euthanasia.
• “It is not immoral to relieve the pain of the terminally ill even if the methods used unintentionally hasten death.” Vancouver Archbishop Adam Exner, News Release, “Response to the Attorney General’s Policy Guidelines on Active Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide,” November 4, 1993.

 Bill C-384 is a bad bill. It would reduce the care for the most vulnerable of society.

For more information, go to the website of the Catholic Health Alliance of Canada.

See also: Acute Pain Relief Without Fear of Death