Interim Staff
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition’s fifth euthanasia symposium, this one co-hosted with the EPC of British Columbia, and held in Vancouver on Sept. 25, was a great success. The 100 participants were pleased by the speakers, from whom they learned about euthanasia and eugenics, the law and disability issues, advances in pain and symptom management and world-wide developments.
The symposium was changed at the last moment to reflect the fact that the lawyers for Evelyn Martens had obtained a draconian publication ban for her trial that banned both facts about the case and information about Martens herself. Martens was charged with aiding and abetting suicide in the deaths of Leyanne Burchell and Monique Charest of British Columbia. Her trial began on Sept. 20, 2004 in Duncan B.C. Originally, the symposium intended to focus somewhat on the implications of the Martens trial and the possible outcomes and their effects on Canada.
Ian Dowbiggin, chair of the history department at UPEI and author of A Merciful End: The History of the Euthanasia Movement in Modern America, effectively connected the founders of the euthanasia movement to the present-day activists. He explained how the attitudes and antics of Rev. George Exoo, who assisted Rosemary O’Toole’s suicide, and Dr. Harry Haiselden, the first doctor to publicly euthanize a disabled infant in the U.S. in 1915, were the very same. Their attitudes are eugenic, based on an attitude that some lives are not worth living, he said.
Dowbiggin also proved that the euthanasia movement has always publicly supported voluntary euthanasia, but privately supported involuntary euthanasia for the unfit. Finally, Dowbiggin connected the leadership, donors and membership of the euthanasia movement to that of the eugenics movement in America.
Hugh Scher, constitutional lawyer and legal counsel for the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, explained how precedent developed through the Rodriguez and Latimer cases. He focused on the Supreme Court of Canada majority decision in the Rodriguez case, which emphasized that allowing Sue Rodriguez an assisted suicide would have created a threat to the lives of all people with disabilities and vulnerable persons in Canada.
Scher concluded his talk by emphasizing the need to establish and promote compassionate, community caring services throughout Canada. We need to encourage the visiting of shut-ins, the lonely and the forgotten, he said. People who are dying, or experience chronic pain or disability, often live a lonely, marginalized life, which leads to the acceptance of euthanasia and assisted suicide. His hope is for a Canada that cares for its vulnerable citizens, and outwardly rejects killing them.
The lunch presentation concerned the new developments in Tectin, the pain management medication that is derived from the Pufferfish. Tectin is currently in phase III clinical trials in 23 centres in Canada. The stage II clinical trials found that 71 per cent of patients received clinically meaningful cancer pain relief. This is significant, knowing that only patients whose pain was not adequately controlled by other analgesics qualified for the stage II clinical trial.
The final speaker was Wesley Smith, legal counsel for the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, Senior fellow with the Discovery Institute and author of 10 books including The Culture of Death and Forced Exit, Smith outlined the world-wide developments concerning euthanasia and assisted suicide and emphasized the trend toward involuntary euthanasia, including pediatric euthanasia being the most recent push in the Netherlands and Belgium.
The symposium closed with a presentation by Alex Schadenberg and Hugh Scher concerning the current focus of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and future directions.
The emphasis was on seeking support among other organizations who share the group’s concerns and on working with and building compassionate community care models throughout Canada.
