On Oct. 31, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition held its annual symposium at downtown Montreal’s Best Western Ville Marie Hotel. Attendees spanned a wide range of ages and hometowns, including medical students from Calgary and veteran pro-life activists from the Maritimes. Talks were delivered in both official languages with simultaneous translation. Though there was no official theme, Quebec’s Bill 52 and the Supreme [...]
Rory Leishman Following a lengthy and sometimes impassioned debate on the euthanasia issue, the British House of Commons resolved on Sept. 11 by the crushing margin of 330 to 188 to reject a private member’s bill to legalize assisted suicide for mentally competent and terminally ill adults. In a genuine democracy, such a decisive vote in Parliament should settle the [...]
In February, the Supreme Court threw out Canada’s Criminal Code prohibition on euthanasia and assisted-suicide and told Parliament it had one year to come up with a new law. If a new law were not written in that time, euthanasia, like abortion, would be legally tolerated, and probably left to be regulated by the provinces. As noted in our election coverage, Campaign [...]
Ontario’s governing body for doctors issued an official policy last month that forces doctors unwilling to kill patients or help them commit suicide to directly refer them to a doctor who would. The policy, titled Planning for and Providing Quality End-of-Life Care, was quietly released by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario September 10, seven months after Canada’s highest court [...]
Ontario’s governing body for doctors issued an official policy last month that forces doctors unwilling to kill patients or help them commit suicide to directly refer them to a doctor who would. The policy, titled Planning for and Providing Quality End-of-Life Care, was quietly released by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario September 10, seven months after Canada’s highest court [...]
Since the federal election campaign began in early August, a variety of issues are being presented to the Canadian public in an effort to influence their vote. Assisted suicide is one topic that has not yet received the attention it deserves according to Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. Schadenberg told The Interim that his organization is “in a [...]
The Ontario Government is spearheading its own “expert panel” on euthanasia and assisted suicide in conjunction with many provinces and territories. The panel has set-up an online survey with skewed questions, nonetheless EPC is urging people to complete the survey. The Provincial-Territorial Expert Advisory Group features a stacked deck with: co-chair, Maureen Taylor, (the widow of Dr Donald Low who demanded the [...]
Euthanasia is the voluntary act of ending a person’s life on their request. Assisted Suicide is the intentional providing of the information, advice and means that one needs to end his life. In Canada, the Supreme Court has struck down the law prohibiting assisted suicide. In February, the Court reasoned that withholding a person’s so-called right to death, interferes with their right [...]
The federal Conservatives’ appointment of a panel to advise the government on how to regulate doctor-assisted suicide is a welcome development, says the president of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Canada. “I’m hoping something good will come of this,” Alex Schadenberg told LifeSiteNews in a telephone interview. “We will have an opportunity to have our voice heard,” and “to make recommendations that [...]
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) has launched the “Give Us Time” postcard campaign in response to the Supreme Court of Canada’s assisted suicide ruling. When the Carter v. Canada decision was released on February 6, the Criminal Code prohibition against assisted suicide was struck down. Previously, section 241 of the Code stated that everyone who aids another person in committing suicide, or [...]
Terri Schiavo Ten years ago this month, the world watched as 41-year-old Terri Schindler Schiavo was starved and dehydrated to death in a Florida hospice. Contrary to popular opinion, Terri was not comatose, brain dead, or dying. She had sustained a profound brain injury in 1990 after going into sudden cardiac arrest at home. Terri was left with severe physical [...]
Alex Schadenberg The Supreme Court of Canada has made an activist decision by giving physicians the right in law to cause the death of people by euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Court has made an irresponsible decision, what is more, by using imprecise and subjective language, leaving many issues to be determined by Parliament; without objective criteria the decision sets [...]
“Fear not,” Dingwall said, when I complained about the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the law against physician-assisted suicide. “What do you mean ‘fear not’?” I replied. “The learned judges are turning compliant doctors into legally approved merchants of death.” “They turned into that when the unlearned politicians legalized limited abortion and the Supreme Court removed the limits.” “In both cases,” I conceded, [...]
“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 [...]
The first appearance of the word “euthanasia” in English occurs in Francis Bacon’s discussion of incurable diseases. He exhorts doctors to tend to the terminally ill, for the “office of the physician” is “not only to restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors,” even when it may only “serve to make…de euthanasia exteriore.” That doctors should assist their suffering patients in [...]