The Federal government opposes Québec euthanasia Bill

Petition: Stop Euthanasia Bill 52 in Quebec.

By Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Justice Minister Peter MacKay

A spokesperson for Justice Minister Peter MacKay responded on May 23 to the re-introduction of the Québec euthanasia Bill 52 by stating:

"The issue of assisted suicide creates great excitement and divisions among many Canadians. Our government believes that the provisions of the Criminal Code prohibiting assisted suicide and euthanasia are used to protect all people, including the most vulnerable people in our society."

The spokesperson for the Justice Minister also stated that the federal government uses the terms euthanasia and assisted suicide, rather than end-of-life care.

Québec's Bill 52 will give doctors the right to lethally inject their patients based on the patient having physical or psychological pain.

Bill 52 masks the reality of the bill by defining euthanasia as a form of medical treatment that is part of "end-of-life care."

Québec Premier Philippe Couillard responded by stating:

"This is a bill about end of life care, the continuum of care,"

If Bill 52 is passed by the Québec National Assembly, groups in Québec have already stated that they will bring the government to court based on the fact that euthanasia is a form of homicide and not medical treatment and therefore the Québec government does not have the right to legislate on this issue.

Petition: Stop Euthanasia Bill 52 in Quebec.

- Québec's euthanasia bill is unconstitutional, imprecise and lethal.

Petition: Stop euthanasia Bill 52 in Québec

Link to the Online Petition.

Dear Honourable Peter MacKay,

We urge you to act by bringing an injunction against the Québec euthanasia bill 52 and by asking the court to strike down the bill as unconstitutional.

Please consider the following reasons:

1. Euthanasia is recognized as a form of homicide in the federal criminal code.
2. Bill 52 defines killing by euthanasia as a part of "health care".
3. Bill 52 will give Québec doctors the right to lethally inject their patients when they are physically or psychological suffering.
4. Bill 52 does not limit euthanasia to terminally ill people. The bill states that a person must be at the end of life but the bill doesn't define "end of life" and it allows euthanasia for psychological suffering, which cannot be defined.
5. Bill 52 targets people with disabilities. The bill states that a person must be in “an advanced and irreversible decline of function.” Many people with disabilities fit this criteria. Since the bill does not define "end of life" euthanasia will be easily extended to people with disabilities.
6. Choice is illusory. It is impossible to ensure that a person is not under pressure, directly or indirectly. It is common for a dependent person to not want to be a burden to their family.
7. Children will gain access to euthanasia. Bill 52 limits euthanasia to adults, but since theQuebec government has defined euthanasia as part of "Health care" therefore the courts will soon extend euthanasia to children based on the equality and human rights of children.
8. Bill 52 cannot be controlled. Bill 52 requires a doctor to notify the Commission on end of life care within 10 days of lethally injecting a person. Doctors in other jurisdictions who abuse the euthanasia law do not self-report abuse. A 2010 Netherlands study found that 23% of all assisted deaths were not reported and a study from Belgium found that doctors do not report assisted deaths that are done outside of the law.
9. Bill 52 defines “medical aid in dying” (euthanasia) as a part of end-of-life care.

Bill 52 creates a right to end-of-life care. Since euthanasia is defined as part of end-of-life care, the bill therefore creates a right to euthanasia.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]

Link to the Online Petition.

EPC and its Québec counterparts want you to know: 

• Euthanasia is defined as homicide in the federal Criminal Code. Bill 52 defined killing by lethal injection as "health care" in order to avoid the Criminal Code prohibition.

• Bill 52 gave Québec doctors the right to lethally inject their patients for physical or psychological suffering. Bill 52 does not define psychological suffering. 

• Bill 52 does not limit euthanasia to terminally ill people. The bill states that a person must be “at the end of life” but the bill does not define end of life.   

• Bill 52 targets people with disabilities. Bill 52 states that a person must be in “an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability.” Many people with disabilities fit these criteria. Since the bill does not define "end of life" euthanasia will be extended to people with disabilities. 

Bill 52 is unconstitutional and needs to be challenged in the court.
Bill 52 is imprecise and open to abuse.
Bill 52 is lethal. 

Links to other articles:

• Québec euthanasia bill (May 22) press conference.
• Québec’s euthanasia Bill 52 is lethal.
• Palliative care leaders oppose Québec Liberal government plan to re-introduce euthanasia.
• Expert’s condemn Québec’s Bill 52. 

Belgium students protest child euthanasia during general election

By Paul Russell, the director of Hope Australia.
This article was published on the Hope Australia blog on May 23, 2014.

Paul Russell

An anonymous group of what is understood to be mainly Belgian students have rallied against their country's child euthanasia laws by taking political action in the current Federal Election.

Some members of parliament have claimed that the defacing of candidates' election posters with a sticker saying: "He / she voted for the euthanasia of children" and the attendant 'thumbs down' is vandalism. Other more circumspect MPs have simply called it free speech.

Some media outlets have tried to characterize the group as being from the 'Catholic Ultra-Right'; something the group rejects.

The leader of this anonymous group, Olivier, told La Libre that, "We think this is a non-violent way to enter the democratic debate and attract the policy that you would like them to deal with real problems in our country rather than legislate on matters ethics for which we did not ask them."

"(t)his was an issue that was not in any manifesto in previous elections and we feel that there has not really been listening to citizens and experts. I recall that 180 experts sent an open statement against the bill and there had been several interventions of international organizations, notably at the International Congress of Pediatric Palliative Care Mumbai letter."

So far the group has marked nearly 2000 candidate posters across Belgium and also has a strong social media presence.

It was this same group that was responsible for the action that led to the filing of flowers, teddy bears and candles outside the gates of Parliament when the law was under debate.

Olivier claimed that, in debating child euthanasia without raising the matter as a platform at the previous election: 

Oregon Runs Out of Death Drugs

By Wesley Smith - May 22, 2014 (originally published on Wesley Smith's blog) 

Wesley Smith

It appears that Oregon has run dry on death drugs. You see death penalty opponents have made the supply of a prime death-causing drug used in assisted suicide scarce. Of course, the media misses the irony. From the Willamette Week story:

Death-with-dignity [assisted suicide] patients are victims of a global political battle over capital punishment in the U.S., according to the federal Food and Drug Administration, which regulates pharmaceuticals, and the Oregon Health Authority, which oversees application of the state’s Death With Dignity Act. 

Access to pentobarbital, also known as Nembutal, has all but ended in the United States because U.S. prison officials use it in lethal injections for executions.

Like I always say, “cruel and unusual death with dignity.

Now, it seems to me that if the drugs are wrong to use in lawful executions, they are also wrong to prescribe to people who want to kill themselves. Death-causing is death-causing, and that ain’t medicine.

But not to worry, the Hemlock Society C & C wants to go in the death-drug distribution trade:

Québec euthanasia Bill 52 is imprecise and open to abuse.

By Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Québec government re-introduced Bill 52 at the stage that it was at before the Québec election.

Since the Supreme Court of Canada will hear a euthanasia case on October 15, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) asks why has the Québec government decided to re-introduce a euthanasia bill and why are they determined to pass the bill so quickly? what's the rush?

Sign the petition: Québec's euthanasia Bill is lethal.

EPC and its Québec counterparts want you to know:

• Euthanasia is defined as homicide in the federal Criminal Code. The bill defines killing by lethal injection as "health care" in order to avoid the Criminal Code prohibition.  

• The bill gave Québec doctors the right to lethally inject their patients for physical or psychological suffering and it does not define psychological suffering. 

• The bill does not limit euthanasia to terminally ill people. It states that a person must be “at the end of life” but the bill does not define end of life.   

• The bill targets people with disabilities. It states that a person must be in “an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability.” Many people with disabilities fit these criteria. Since the bill does not define "end of life" euthanasia will be extended to people with disabilities.

Bill 52 is imprecise and open to abuse.
Bill 52 is unconstitutional and will be challenged in the court.

Bill is lethal.

For more information contact:
Nic Steenhout (Montreal) Vivre dans la Dignité (438) 931-1233 – info@vivredignite.com
Alex Schadenberg (London) Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (519) 851-1434 – info@epcc.ca
Amy Hasbrouck (Montreal) Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet: (450) 921-3057 – info@tv-ndy.ca

Link to other articles:

• Québec euthanasia bill (May 22) press conference.
• Québec’s euthanasia Bill 52 is lethal.
• Palliative care leaders oppose Québec Liberal government plan to re-introduce euthanasia.
• Expert’s condemn Québec’s Bill 52.

Quebec Euthanasia Bill (May 22) Press Conference

Rushed adoption of Bill 52: 
a parody of democracy that invites legal challenges

MONTREAL, May 21, 2014 

Media representatives are invited to a joint press conference with the Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia and the citizen network Living with Dignity. At this time, the spokespersons of both groups will announce their intention to challenge the possible adoption of Bill 52 by the National Assembly. The spokespersons will be available to answer questions.

When: Thursday, May 22, 2014 

Statements (14h) Opportunity for interviews (14h 15 à 15h)

Where: Vie autonome Montréal 

2120, rue Sherbrooke East, room 402

Sources: The citizen network Living with Dignity (http://vivredignite.org/en/) and the Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia (http://totalrefusal.blogspot.ca).

For further information or to organize an interview with a spokesperson, please contact:

Nicolas Steenhout
Director General
Living with Dignity
info@vivredignite.com
438-931-1233

- Sign the online petition: Québec's euthanasia Bill 52 is lethal.
- Québec's euthanasia bill is unconstitutional, imprecise and lethal.

Vermont Assisted Suicide Law: One year later ...

The following report was published by True Dignity Vermont on May 20, 2014.

A year ago today, at the bill signing party for Act 39 held in the Governor’s ceremonial office, True Dignity Vermont launched a hotline and email address for individuals who suspect that a patient was being unduly influenced to request or ingest lethal drugs, or were being given such drugs against their will. That number is: 1-855-787-5455 or 1-855-STP-KILL, and ReportAbuse@TrueDignityVt.org.

“We expanded our educational role to become a place where our network of health care providers and other supporters would have a place to take their concerns,” stated True Dignity spokesperson, Carolyn McMurray of Bennington. “The most alarming reports we have received to date involve two separate clinical psychologists, dealing with two different patients, both of whom had suicidal tendencies. In each case, the patients revealed their belief that suicide was more ‘acceptable’ now that the legislature had passed this law.”

Shortly after Act 39 went into effect, True Dignity Vermont received a call from a woman convinced that a health care facility was intentionally withholding treatment from her elderly mother. TDVT recommended that she contact the appropriate experts for further investigation.

Nearly six weeks ago, True Dignity Vermont received a call from an 85 year-old Korean War veteran from New Jersey who wanted information about how he could come here and get a “shot” to end his life. During the conversation, he revealed that he was not terminally-ill, nor physically ill in anyway. He said he was depressed, and he said the suffering of depression was terrible. The man believed, with all his heart, that the new law meant that he could come to Vermont and a physician would end his life. True Dignity Representative told him we did not want him to commit suicide and talked to him for as long as he wanted to talk. He said it helped him a lot to talk. The representative told him to get professional help and invited him to call back to talk whenever he wished. He has not called back.

Stephen Sutton lived everyday with dignity.

By Alex Schadenberg

Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Stephen Sutton, who, at the age of 19, died of cancer on Tuesday, May 14 in Burntwood Staffordshire UK. 

Stephen was an inspiring example of a person who lived every day of his life with dignity.

When he was 15, he learned that he had terminal cancer. Sutton decided to live every day, so he drew up a bucket list consisting of 46 things he wanted to do before he died.

One of his goals was to write a book, which he accomplished in 2013. Another of his bucket list goals was to raise £10,000 for a Teenage Cancer Trust. Sutton raised nearly £4 million.

The UK Daily Mail reported his death in this way:

During his brief life, Stephen Sutton achieved something very beautiful. Not in the amount of money he raised for the Teenage Cancer Trust (although the £4 million plus is the largest donation they’ve received), but in reminding all of us of the meaning of life, and of the importance of celebrating each waking hour. 

His sheer determination, and his courage in enduring painful treatment for cancer, were inspiring beyond words. 

When Rebecca Hardy in this newspaper asked him how he put up with the pain, he replied: ‘At the end of the day, it’s going to give you so much extra life — and the extra life is definitely worth it. Life is brilliant.’

The Daily Mail concluded the article by stating:

It is humbling to witness, and a salutary reminder that each life is important, no matter how different or troubled it appears to be. 

It makes it all the more shocking to see people actively wanting to bring an end to their lives when you see others fighting to survive, fighting to live another day, because they recognise that our life on Earth is precious beyond measure; that it is a gift beyond price.

... Life is to be lived, in whatever guise it is offered to us, because, as the remarkable young man who was taken from us this week said: ‘Life is brilliant.’

French medical students say no to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The following article was written by Redazione West and published on May 19, 2015 by west-info.eu

Sign the EPC - Europe: Euthanasia in Belgium Petition.

France’s doctors of the future say no to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

It’s a point-blank rejection that comes from a group of young medical students from the collective Soigner dans la dignité (cure with dignity). 

They believe that assisted death is a shortcut that avoids confronting two problems. The first concerns the fact that in medical school, study of end-of-life is very short and incomplete. The students believe therefore that you can’t ask doctors, who are nigh-on inexperienced in the field, to bring an individual’s existence to an end, without giving it due importance. The second problem is purely scientific. The medical students say there is an alternative to euthanasia, which is more effective and in line with the teachings of Hippocrates: the use of palliative care, which is indicated by the Leonetti law of 2005.

"Medical Aid In Dying" Euthanasia Bill In Québec

From One Totalitarian Party To Another?

By Michel Racicot, a retired lawyer who works with Vivre dans la Dignité (Living with Dignity) in  Québec.

Sign the online petition: Québec's euthanasia Bill is lethal.

At a meeting held on May 15, at the Good Shepherd Church in Brossard, with about 75 persons present, Dr. Gaetan Barrette made a few surprising declarations in a speech full of half-truths and errors about the content of the former Bill 52 which aimed, among other things, to decriminalize euthanasia under the euphemism of «medical aid in dying».

Gaetan Barrette

The Minister of Health stated that, earlier in the day, he had made a two hour presentation to the Liberal caucus, especially to brief the newly-elected MNAs, and that the caucus was not unanimous about the euthanasia bill. Last night, however, he asserted forcefully that Bill 52 would nevertheless be reintroduced in the state it was in before the dissolution of the National Assembly, as Dr. Couillard had promised during the electoral campaign.

Upon being questioned, Dr. Barrette admitted that this requires a unanimous decision of all members of the National Assembly and that there would be unanimity on this step, even though half of the Liberal MNAs voted against Bill 52 at second reading. Through a nice sophism, he interpreted the promise of his leader to hold a free vote as applying only to the third reading after reintroduction of the Bill but not to the decision to reintroduce Bill 52 in the state it was in when the election was called.

He even announced that there would be no amendments as compared to the prior version, except for three minor modifications in the English version because of errors in translation, and even that none of the amendments proposed by the Liberals when they were in opposition, and which were defeated by the previous PQ government, would be reintroduced. How much opinions change when you come into power, especially as a majority government!

This stunning about-face of the Liberal party, which now intends to withdraw from all its MNAs the full right to vote according to their conscience at all steps of the adoption process of a fundamental law dealing with the life and safety of thousands of Quebec citizens, and thereby abnegating the moral responsibility of those who participate in it, is a serious case of abuse of power at the highest level. We are probably witnessing a case of Minister Barrette bullying his colleagues, a situation which should sound the alarm about installing a culture of collusion/bullying in the new government. In the name of democracy and the credibility of our institutions, each elected member who believes that this bill contains dangerous elements for the most vulnerable members of our society, not only has the right, but also the duty, to oppose it at all steps of its adoption, even this causes a return to square one.

What will all the Liberal Ministers and MNAs who voted against Bill 52 when they were in opposition do now?

Will they accept being reduced to silence? Will they clear their conscience by not objecting to the re-introduction of Bill 52 while voting against it in third reading knowing full well that this risks leading to a rapid adoption of Bill 52?

What will the PQ MNAs do, now that they are in the opposition? Those of the CAQ?

Will there be one, a single one, to stand up with courage and state that there is no unanimity in favour of re-introducing this deadly Bill?

Me Michel Racicot
(Retired) lawyer
Ste-Thérèse, Québec

- Québec's euthanasia bill 52 is lethal.

The current debate on assisted suicide is sadly misplaced.

By Dr Rene Leiva, published in the Ottawa Citizen - May 17, 2014.

Sign the Declaration of Hope as a positive response to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

I find the current debate on assisted suicide in the Parliament sadly misplaced. As a doctor who has been caring for the elderly and dying for 12 years now, I believe we are missing the boat on this one.

To paraphrase a philosopher, the answer to euthanasia is not a pill but a person, not a word but an act. It is an act of loving presence. As Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl says, 

"love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality."

The experience of many, including mine, is that the presence of a loved one to the sick and fragile and the voicing to the patient that they are being truly and honestly loved is what gives true dignity.

When suffering and loneliness arrives, if someone honestly tells the patient that they are worth so much to them no matter what, that they are loved and needed just by being present, I think it would be very hard for them to go ahead with their plan.

I can often spend only limited time with my patients, but friends and family can offer something I can't. I can deal easily with the pain of the body, but I can't do the same with the pain of the soul. At the end, it is all about the command that says, "I was sick and you took care of me."

I hope I can teach this to my children.

Rene Leiva, MD,
Palliative care and care of the elderly, Ottawa Ontario

"Quality of Life" decisions lead to Infanticide.

By Wesley Smith - published on his Human Exceptionalism blog on May 15, 2014.

Wesley Smith

I have long argued that our neurotic obsession with eliminating suffering–we should, of course alleviate and mitigate it–leads very quickly to eliminating the sufferer.

Many mainstream bioethicists push this meme as part of their attempt to convince society to permit infanticide for the same reasons that we allow late stage abortion. Always, these efforts are couched in eliminating suffering and killing based on quality of life–the approach of pro -euthanasia Canadian bioethicist Udu Schuklenk. From, “What We Should Do About Severely Impaired Nowborns?”

My [debate] opponent also argued that we should ask ourselves whether we would want to live in a society that terminated the lives of such vulnerable newborns. That’s a good question to ask as it forces us to think more carefully about the values that are at stake in such situations. 

If we merely go by the newborn’s quality of life and life prospects it seems indeed best to end the unfolding tragedy sooner rather than later, but probably a decision should be arrived at with parental consent as opposed to against the unfortunate parents. It turns out that one can reasonably answer the rhetorical question of whether one would want to live in a society that terminated the lives of certain severely impaired newborns if one held the view – as I do – that the newborn’s current and future quality of life is all that matters here. I could live in such a society where empathy for human suffering trumps religious conviction.

Don’t be fooled by the “parental consent” nonsense. First, parents shouldn’t have the power to have their babies killed. Beyond that, if we owe a duty to the baby to kill him, then parental rights become irrelevant and it’s veto time. Relevantly, back in the late 1990s, The Lancet reported that 27% of infanticides in the Netherlands–all based on a supposedly “unlivable life” occurs without parental consent.

If the parents’ reason for wanting to love their baby as long as he lives can be viewed as religious–strongly hinted by Schuklenk as the only reason anyone could oppose, it’s really veto time!

Add in the issue of medical costs, and if we live in a society based on “quality of life” instead of equality/sanctity of life, and–yes, you guessed it–veto time! Schuklenk pushes the QoL poison:

This view, in turn, requires us to rethink how we go about doing medicine, at least to some extent. It would require us to give up on what is called the sanctity-of-life doctrine in medicine and replace it with a quality-of-life ethic. 

There is no point in maintaining human life for the sake of it if that human life cannot enjoy a moment of its existence and is trapped in a never-ending cycle of immense pain and suffering. A quality-of-life ethics would not merely ask ‘do you exist’, but ‘do you have a life worth living?’, or ‘will you have a life worth living?’ We are not there yet, but significant changes in this direction are occurring in many countries.

Jane Campbell, an influential British politician and disability rights leader, speaks out against assisted suicide.

Baroness Jane Campbell

Baroness Jane Campbell, a respected member of the British House of Lords and a disability rights leader, recently spoke against assisted suicide in response to two British entertainers who spoke about their 'suicide pact.'

Campbell, who was the commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Committee from 2006 - 2008 told the Daily Mail:

the couple’s decision was ‘entirely their own matter’, she added: ‘When it becomes problematic is because they have a very prominent influence on people. 

‘They have a massive following but what they’re not doing is thinking about how their decisions may impact upon other people and the adverse effect this could have on people. 

‘They have a very influential voice and the people who will suffer will be those who are vulnerable to influence and coercion.

Reject euthanasia and save us from Dr Death.

By Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, The Age (Australia) - May 9, 2014

Nicholas Tonti-Filippini lives with a life-threatening chronic condition.

Nicholas Tonti-Filippini

There are three ways in which euthanasia can become lawful: the parliament legislating to make an exception to the criminal law (the Oregon approach); the courts making lenient decisions that result in the public prosecutor deciding to accept medical guidelines for when no charges will be laid (the Netherlands approach); and changes to medical practice to permit fatal neglect – the ‘‘sedate and demand feed’’ approach that brings about a slow death by dehydration or starvation.

The recent decision by Rodney Syme to admit to having supplied the fatal dose that ended Steve Guest’s life indicates a shift from his pursuit of the first way in favour of the second. Presumably, the hope is that a police investigation will result in no charges being laid or, if they are laid, the courts will be reluctant to send an aged urologist to jail. Dr Syme is a far more wily advocate than Australia’s other ‘‘Dr Death’’, Philip Nitschke, who has found himself on the wrong end of the interest of the medical regulators.

Mr Guest’s decision to take his own life, with the help that Dr Syme now admits providing, was very public. He did his best to make his own unlawful manner of dying a euthanasia cause celebre. I engaged in discussion with Mr Guest during that time, and after his death I received a letter from his brothers that identified and implicated the medical assistance he received. At the time I sent copies of the letter to the Director of Public Prosecutions and to the police but received no acknowledgement from either. So I do not expect much to happen, now that Dr Syme has publicly admitted what was already known, that he was involved at the time and the likely provider of the fatal dose.

The Age’s recent reporting confuses the issue of supplying a fatal dose of barbiturate and the much more nuanced matter of prescribing pain relief that also shortens life. There is a world of difference between providing treatment of pain with foreseeable side effects that contribute to a shortening of life, and deciding to end someone’s life with an overdose of a sedative. In the former case, the modern-day issue would only be one of competence, because now there are alternative palliative care measures that avoid the need to give morphine at doses that suppress respiration. Drugs are given in combination and carefully titrated to ensure safety and effectiveness. Palliative care is more likely to lengthen life than to shorten it. People often live longer when their symptoms are relieved and they are well-supported.

Palliative care is also much more than just prescribing drugs. A multidisciplinary effort is involved, especially to deal with the effects of existential suffering. A person receiving palliative care is likely to have a community of carers available. Often that may involve trained volunteers, especially if they die at home with the support of a home hospice service. There are some brilliant initiatives, such as the biography project, in which trained volunteers record interviews with a person receiving palliative care and create a biography. It is a task that gives purpose and meaning and a great legacy for family and friends – the questions often revealing much about a life that was unknown to them.

Throughout the Steve Guest saga, my concern was that he was not receiving the care he could have received if palliative care professionals had been involved. It is a major concern that our Dr Deaths seem to be providing an alternative for chronically ill people that lacks the multidisciplinary support and the expertise needed to manage patient care well. The last person I would want to see at the end of my bed would be a lone Dr Death. I would much prefer to see a palliative care nurse and all that her competent presence implies fora team of expertise and support.

The euthanasia proposals are invariably discriminatory against chronically ill people like me. The proposals create a separate category of people, however we are described, whose lives are contingent upon our will to keep living. This is why most politicians have opposed specific legislation even while claiming to support euthanasia. The fact is that legalising the killing of a small category of people changes everything for us.

Living with a chronic illness means dependency upon a team of people who are actively engaged in supporting and sustaining us, and making life liveable. If euthanasia were lawful, my physician, and the nurses providing dialysis, would at least have to advise me of the option. That would utterly change the relationship. It would be like a football coach declaring that defeat is an option.

People with chronic illness struggle with depression. It is simply part of the advance of disease that loss of ability and increased symptoms are very challenging. Making the adjustment, at each stage of the way, needs all the support we can get. We do not need to have our legislators write us off. We do not need a law that would have family members and caregivers conscious of the other option, and the resultant feeling that we could relieve them of our burden.

What we need is better training of health care professionals in palliative care. No one should be tended by a doctor or nurse who thinks that an opiate or barbiturate is the only option. Competent care and the support of a multidisciplinary team should be a given, wherever a person lives. No one should be reliant on a Dr Death.

Nicholas Tonti-Filippini is associate dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, in East Melbourne.

Why would a euthanasia practitioner tour Auschwitz?

Link to the EPC - Europe Euthanasia in Belgium Petition.

This article was published by Mercatornet on May 15, 2014.

Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick speaking
at the Council of Europe

By Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick and Dr Tom Mortier

The leading practitioner of euthanasia in Belgium, Dr Wim Distelmans, is organizing an instructional tour to Auschwitz, the Nazi extermination camp. In a travel brochure he describes Auschwitz as an ‘inspiring’ surrounding in which to ‘clarify confusion about euthanasia’.

In fact, Dr Distelmans’s tour does help to clarify matters: it shows that how little distance there is between Belgian euthanasia in 2014 and Nazi death camps in 1944.

Linking the right to die and the Nazis is a no-no in most circles. In fact, opponents are usually deemed to have lost the argument as soon as they mention the word “Nazi”. But Dr Distelmans’s breath-taking initiative could change that rule. To hold a seminar on euthanasia in an extermination camp where the idea of ‘lives not worth living’ took its most extreme form, is peculiar, to say the least.

Professor Tom Mortier

Dr Distelmans has often been in world headlines. He was filmed on television killing Nathan Verhelst who was suffering after failed sex reassignment surgery. He performed the world’s first double euthanasia when he killed twin brothers Marc and Eddy Verbessem, whom Belgium’s social services were not able to help. At least three times he has been involved in euthanasing people who are depressed.

Dr Distelmans has also chaired the Belgium Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission since euthanasia was legalised in 2000 – a commission which has never investigated a single death.

In a 'travel brochure' emailed to his contacts he describes the study tour as follows:

“Belgium is the only country in the world with a law that is concerned about a dignified end-of-life for everyone because of the patients rights law, the law on palliative care and the euthanasia law. In our country there is - unlike other countries of continental Europe – already 25 years of excellent professional palliative care and for more than 10 years we also have experience with transparent euthanasia requests and respect for patient rights. 

“In dealing with the problems of life, one is constantly confronted with existential pain, questions about the meaning of life, self-reflection, reliance, self-determination, finiteness and especially with (in)dignity. Therefore, it seemed a logical step to us to plan the next study trip to the place that is the eminent symbol of an unworthy end-of-life being Oświęcim, better known as Auschwitz, the extermination camp of the Nazis in Poland. This site is an inspiring venue for organizing a seminar and reflecting on these issues so that we can consider and clarify confusions.”

Dr Distelmans appears to have suffered a severe lapse of judgement. If, hypothetically, an Association of American State Prisons Executioners were to organise a holiday tour of Auschwitz with their wives and partners, staying at an expensive hotel and winding up an exhausting day at one of the best restaurants in Krakow (as Dr Distelmans and his fellow travellers will be doing), would there not be an uproar? What experience would they have gained there? Quicker ways of gassing prisoners? More efficient ways of administering lethal injections? Less painful ways of withdrawing nutrition and hydration? No doubt even their friends and admirers would question their eagerness to be “inspired” at a venue so steeped in horror.

It is widely acknowledged that the Nazi euthanasia program was a trial run for the death camps. It began in 1939 with the mercy killing of a severely disabled child. By the end of World War II, 5,000 sick and “idiot” children had received the blessing of a mercy killing. This experience was so fruitful that it grew into the T4 program for the mercy killing of chronically ill and disabled adults. There were so many of these that Hitler’s mercy killing technicians invented the gas chambers which proved so effective at Auschwitz.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) pushes suicide.

This article was originally published by Wesley Smith on his blog.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley Smith, May 13, 2014. 

The media are society’s premier suicide pushers.

Oh sure, they decry suicides of teenagers and veterans. But they push suicide for the elderly, the disabled, the chronically and terminally ill–sometimes even, the mentally ill.

Canada’s CBC is the latest example. It interviewed an octogenarian about his plans to commit suicide before becoming too old. Then, after he died, they ran the profile.  From the story:

A Toronto man’s decision to end his life, simply because he felt it was time to die, has raised questions and concerns among family, friends and experts, some of whom say it could take the assisted suicide debate down a “slippery slope.” 

John Alan Lee, a former professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, died in December. He had carefully planned his own death for months and discussed his decision with a CBC crew.

Do you see how insidious this is? By going out with cameras and wide-eyed reporters to cover his suicide plan, the CBC actually validated Lee’s desire to die. Indeed, I would warrant it would make it harder to walk back.

How often have we seen this? Suicides are given high profile, even laudatory coverage. And the “experts” are quoted as saying we have to have the difficult conversations about permitting assisted suicide.

Then, once we do, the conversation is over forever because a new “right” has been created that can’t be taken away.

The CBC gives great respect to the idea that suicide can be “rational,” a dangerous meme in the mental health professions against which I have been warning for years:

Lee’s position reflects a broader philosophy known as “completed life” or “rational suicide.” The Dutch Parliament recently debated giving seniors over the age of 70 the right to euthanasia, regardless of illness.

"What Should We Do About Severely Impaired Babies".

A Reply to "What Should We Do About Severely Impaired Babies".

William Peace

By William Peace, May 11, 2014 (Published on his Bad Cripple blog).

In the Kingston Whig (May 9, 2014) I read an editorial by Udo Schuklenk who teaches bioethics at Queen’s University. Schuklenk’s, “What Should We do About Severely Impaired babies”? made me lose sleep last night. Link.

Utilitarianism has its its hooks into the health industrial complex, mainstream press, and contemporary popular culture. Access to health care is increasingly based on the lives we perceive as being worth living. This is a dangerous if not a deadly line of thought for vulnerable populations. I am one of those people whose life is not worth living in the estimation of many—paging Peter Singer at Princeton University and all those at the the University of Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. So whose life lacks value? Severely disabled infants, elderly people with Alzheimer’s Disease, those with a profound cognitive deficits, vent dependent quadriplegics, and many other costly and undesirable human beings. This makes me shudder. It is sobering and distressing to know my existence is unwanted. It is frightening to know some, highly educated others, think my life has no value and would like to end my suffering.

It does not take a great deal of insight to establish whose life is worth living. All those that are productive and contribute to society in a very narrow sense have value: bipedal people with typical cognition who are employed and supposedly fully autonomous. What utilitarianism fosters is a business model of life or bottom line approach that is essentially heartless, unimaginative, and draconian. Compassion in health care? Forget it. All hail modern medical science and expensive high tech diagnostic tools. Of course the proviso is only those we value have access high priced high profit medical technology. Worse, we can use that technology to prevent expensive, oops, I mean severely disabled infants from existing. Schuklenk celebrates prenatal testing.

Every year a small number of fetuses are carried to term who have no reasonable chance of living a life worth living. They are so severely impaired that they will live a miserable, short life until they eventually expire. The good news is that, courtesy of prenatal screening, only few such births take place and the numbers are decreasing. We have some data from the Netherlands, where a few hundred out of about 200,000 newborns annually tend to fall into this category.

What Schuklenk is celebrating is a new form Eugenics. In stating this I just lost my bioethicists and neonatology readership. When I use the E word bioethicists and neonatologist shut down. These heath care professionals believe my views are offensive and unbalanced. Surely I must be a religious fundamentalist whose faith and adherence to religious doctrine clouds my thought. Worse, some neonatologists will furiously and assert “I am not Nazi” when asked probing ethical questions. There is no effort to look beyond the narrow confines of the institution where they ply their trade. This enables a scholar such as Schuklenk to wonder: