On March 27 MP Steven Fletcher (CPC, Charleswood–St. James–Assiniboia), who is a quadriplegic, tabled a pair of private members bills, C-581 and C-582, that would allow euthanasia and assisted-suicide in Canada. Considering that Fletcher is far down the order of precedence, at #240, it is unlikely his bill will be considered in the House of Commons before the October 2015 federal election, [...]
On the question of euthanasia, the people have spoken. In 2010, the late Bloc MP, Francine Lalonde, made her third attempt to weaken Canada’s laws protecting the elderly and the infirm, and her bill was comfortably defeated by a vote in the House of 228 to 59. The will of the people could not be clearer. And yet, just four years after this firm rejection, the previous [...]
A vote on the Parti Quebecois government’s Bill 52, the Quebec euthanasia bill, died when the Quebec National Assembly recessed on February 20 without voting and the provincial assembly was dissolved on March 5 with an election was called for April 7. Just days prior to the recess, Philippe Couillard, leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, secured extra time for debate [...]
Years ago, while covering the case of Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan farmer who killed his disabled daughter in cold blood, a columnist observed: “A society that believes in nothing can offer no argument even against death. A culture that has lost its faith in life cannot comprehend why it should be endured.” This incisive observation cuts to the heart of the contradiction [...]
On Feb. 13, Belgium became the first country to approve euthanasia for children when the Chamber of Representatives passed the measure 86-44 with 12 abstentions. The Senate voted 50-17 in favour of expanding the country’s 12-year-old euthanasia to include children last December. The measure, which permits any child with the “capacity of discernment” to request a lethal injection or concoction of barbiturate [...]
Proposed euthanasia law is ‘unconstitutional, imprecise and lethal’: EPC Quebec premier Pauline Marois may face an election before her governments's Bill-52 is passed. The Quebec legislature recessed for two weeks when the latest session of the National Assembly ended Feb. 20, which might help kill Bill 52, the so-called medical-aid-in-dying bill that would bring euthanasia to Canada’s second largest province. [...]
This past weekend the Liberal Party of Canada adopted a resolution at its biennial policy convention calling for decriminalization of euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide in a vote by show of hands. The resolution said: "Be it resolved that voluntary medically-assisted death be de-criminalized after a public consultation process designed to make recommendations to Parliament with respect to the criteria for access and [...]
It is difficult to imagine how a fair-minded reader of Debating Euthanasia could come to any conclusion but that Keown is right: euthanasia is an unmitigated evil that can never be justified. Emily Jackson and John Keown are two of the foremost experts on the law as it relates to euthanasia in Britain and the United States. Together, they have [...]
Hassan Rasouli In a ruling of vital national significance, the Supreme Court of Canada has held in the Rasouli case that the Ontario Health Care Consent Act (HCCA) prohibits a physician from unilaterally terminating life-support for a patient who is incapable of consenting to medical treatment. While this case dealt specifically with Ontario, physicians in other provinces should beware that the Court [...]
Doctors at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto took their flight to unilaterally withdraw life support from Hassan Rasouli to three levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada. Rasouli's family was victorious, saying medical staff could not end treatment with ought their content or without the permission of the Consent and Capacity Board. The Canadian Supreme Court has ruled in [...]
Dr. Donald Low became a public figure during the Toronto SARS crisis of 2003 when, amid innumerable news conferences, the staid and reassuring microbiologist became a familiar face. He returned to the public’s mind last month after a video was released following his death at age 68. In this video, recorded just one week before he succumbed to natural causes, Low makes [...]
At the end of July, the Campaign Life Coalition interns collaborated with the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) for weekly street activism. A lady stopped to ask us why embryonic human beings should be considered valuable. After all, we consume chicken embryos when we have eggs for breakfast, don’t we? (Actually no – those eggs have not been fertilized.) She went [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman After years of debate over euthanasia, it is amazing that so many generally well informed people can remain fundamentally ignorant about the issues at stake. Consider the observations on end-of-life care expressed by Dr. Cameron Ghent in his book Medicine Outside the Box: Musings about Health-care Issues. Ghent is a distinguished, Yale-trained hepatologist, and recently retired adjunct professor of [...]
Tracy Latimer, who had cerebral palsy, was murdered by her father Robert in a case that garnered extensive media coverage. An article on feminist website XOJane summarizes a disturbing phenomenon, which is not the modern trend it appears to be: young people with disabilities being killed by members of their own families. Robert Latimer’s inhumane “solution” to the struggles of [...]
EDMONTON – The National Parole Board has removed the parole condition of psychological counseling for convicted child killer Robert Latimer, who murdered Tracy, his 12-year old daughter with Cerebral Palsy, in 1993 by putting her in the cabin of his truck and piping exhaust fumes into it. His crime was called “compassionate homicide” by many and sparked debate on euthanasia. After being [...]