Anti-euthanasia groups are monitoring a promise by Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs of Manitoba to introduce legislative legalizing euthanasia in Canada.
According to a report in the Focus on the Family (Canada) family issues briefing, Carstairs is hoping to bring an assisted suicide bill to the Senate this fall.
“I believe in the cry of (former assisted suicide activist) Sue Rodriguez,” said Carstairs, “which was ‘Whose life is it anyway?’”
Rodriguez, suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease, committed suicide in late 1994 after the Supreme Court upheld the Criminal Code prohibition of doctor-assisted suicide. She was assisted by an unknown physician and by B.C. NDP Member of Parliament Svend Robinson.
Pro-life and pro-family groups have suspected that the federal Liberals were planning to introduce assisted suicide legislation, especially since the May 9 passage of Bill C-33, the law banning discrimination against homosexuals.
These groups are concerned that Carstairs and the federal Liberal caucus have been swept up in the growing climate of tolerance for euthanasia.
Recent court decisions in the U.S. have overturned laws against physician assisted suicide.
Meanwhile, juries refused to convict euthanasia doctor Jack Kevorkian of Michigan of any assisted suicide related charges.
Kevorkian has helped more then 30 terminally ill men and women end their lives. His first Canadian victim was Austin Bastible of Windsor, Ontario, who crossed the border into Detroit in May to take advantage of Kevorkian’s suicide service.
Prior to his death, Bastible recorded a video message pleading with the Canadian government to pass some form of assisted suicide legislation.
