On March 27, Fraser Valley West MP Robert Wenman introduced a Private Members Bill that called for cessation and refusal of medical treatment for terminally ill patients.

Wenman, a Conservative, who considers himself to be pro-life, voted in favour of Bill C-43 in July 1990. Bill C-43 would have legalized abortion on demand in Canada. The measure was defeated in a tie vote in the Senate in January 1991.

According to a press release issued from Mr. Wenman’s office, the new Bill “calls for amendments to the Criminal Code which will clearly state that physicians will not be under any obligation to administer treatment against the expressed wishes of a patient, or when treatment has become therapeutically useless.”

Stating that his bill marks “the first time the issue has been addressed at the federal level,” Mr. Wenman also stated that “cessation of treatment is a private decision best determined by the individual, family members and qualified care givers.”

Wenman’s initiative was influenced by recommendations contained in a 1983 Law Reform Commission of Canada (LRC) report entitled Euthanasia, Aiding Suicide and Cessation of Treatment.

The LRC has long been one of the chief supporters of abortion on demand.

Although the Commission rejected legalization of active euthanasia and assisted suicide, it recommended that amendments be made to the Criminal Code to ensure that criminal liability would not result from administering palliative care that had the effect of shortening a person’s life.

The Commission also sought to ensure that the Criminal Code would not be interpreted to require a physician to continue to administer or to undertake medical care against the wishes of a patient of where the treatment would be deemed therapeutically useless. In other words, the LRC’s main recommendations concerned the protection of doctors involved in euthanasia.

Couldn’t explain

Contracted by The Interim, Sean Riley, Executive Assistant to Wenman, couldn’t explain why the bill had been introduced to ‘protect’ doctors; when as Wenman noted in his speech to the House of Commons, no Canadian doctor has ever been convicted of a euthanasia-related offence.

Mr. Riley stated that the bill was considered important by Mr. Wenman because it would serve to foster debate regarding how the terminally ill are being treated in Canada.

When presented with a number of questions about how the mentally incapacitated might be subject to so-called mercy killing, Mr. Riley stated that ‘living wills’ would have to state a patient’s prior wishes before cessation of medical treatment would be undertaken.

Supporters

Attached to Wenman’s press release were the names of a number of interest groups and organizations contacted for consultation in drafting the bill. The names of three AIDS groups appeared (AIDS Vancouver, McLaren House, Persons with AIDS Society of Vancouver). The list also contained Dying With Dignity – a pro-euthanasia group – and the Canadian Nurses Association and the Canadian Medical Association, represented by Dr. Elke-Henner Kluge.

Dr. Kluge was the co-author, along with University of Ottawa law professor Joseph Magnet, of a 1986 study that recommended that doctors kill seriously defective babies at birth.

When contacted by The Interim, Stella McMurran, a spokesman for Dying With Dignity, stated that mentally ill or incapacitated patients would not be killed by doctors if Wenman’s bill becomes law. “Only physical, not psychological factors” would be allowed to enter into a decision to respect a patient’s decision to die, Ms. McMurran said.

Margaret Somerville

When the interview turned to the broader issue of respect for life, McMurran stated that she dislikes abortion but fully supports a woman’s choice to undergo one.

The Interim also contacted Dr. Margaret Somerville, Director of the McGill Centre for Medical Ethics and the Law. Dr. Somerville stated that she had not yet heard of the bill, but when its main points were read to her, she said that the criminal law already protects physicians in the manner that Mr. Wenman’s bill proposes.

Critics of euthanasia should be careful not to lose credibility by attacking those who support a patient’s wish to refuse treatment, but do not wish to see lives endangered, she stated.

Patients should not be forced to submit to treatments which violate personal wishes and privacy, she maintained. When asked if a patient should be permitted to refuse such a life-sustaining treatment as kidney dialysis, Dr. Somerville said that such technologies are relatively new and should not be forced on patients against their will.

Columnist Peter Stockland attacked Mr. Wenman’s bill in the Ottawa Citizen of April 1, 1991. Referring to the bill as “sugar-coated cyanide,” Mr. Stockland stated that pro-abortion Federal Justice Minister Kim Campbell has welcomed Mr. Wenman’s initiative. He also referred to those who are behind the bill as “eugenicists” who will use the legislation to determine who is fit to live or die.