“The Supreme Court is naïve to think that assisted suicide will not be abused, when abuse already occurs … Giving doctors the right to cause the death of their patients will never be safe and no amount of “so-called safeguards” will protect those who live with depression or abuse. There will always be people who will abuse the power to cause death and there will always be more reasons to cause death.”
• Alex Schadenberg, executive director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
“The judgment creates the potential for the most permissive and least restrictive criteria for assisted suicide in the world, putting persons with disabilities at serious risk.”
• Council of Canadians with Disabilities and the Canadian Association for Community Living
“Considering that the Court reaffirms the federal-provincial shared competence on these issues, we encourage parliamentarians to eventually frame in the strictest possible way any exceptions to prevent anyone from being unjustly euthanized without their consent and that such policies never come against access to proper medical care. To avoid abuse and extensions found in Belgium and the Netherlands, Canada must impose much stronger safeguards than those established in the laws and regulations of those countries.”
• Living with Dignity
and the Physicians’ Alliance against Euthanasia
“The decision refers to physicians assisting in someone’s death by providing medication, which suggests that both the medical profession and the health-care system will be involved. As such, it is not a private act between two people, but a public act regulated by a process designed and monitored by the government, and possibly publicly funded. It concerns us all.”
• Bruce Clemenger, president,
Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
“In striking down Rodriguez, our highest court told Canadians today that the lives of the weak, infirm, and vulnerable are not worth protecting. The court in essence decided that some people are better off dead than alive and gave power to those who are strong to end the lives of those who are weak. This is a terrible day of shame for Canada.”
• Jim Hughes, national president,
Campaign Life Coalition
“There will be plenty of language around “safe guards” and “strict guidelines” to prop up the decision, but the principle will have never-the-less been established. The Supreme Court of Canada will now accept that a doctor can kill instead of care for patients whose lives have become difficult and vulnerable due to age, illness or disability. What was once a criminal offence will become an acceptable medical practice.”
• Life Canada
“I am calling upon all party leaders to set aside their partisan differences and unite in support of using the Charter’s section 33 ‘notwithstanding’ clause in order to give Parliament the time it needs to conduct broad enough consultations to discern: how we can implement a plan to provide the resources and substantial palliative care to significantly alleviate suffering so that requests to die will be reduced to a minimum; and how to provide appropriate parameters and safeguards in response to the Supreme Court’s decision.”
• Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott
(Saskatoon-Wanuskewin)
“I have now fully digested the Canada Supreme Court’s absurd ruling lethally injecting euthanasia into the Maple Leaf vein. My stomach hurts.”
• Wesley J. Smith,
lawyer and anti-euthanasia activist
