The government introduced its assisted-suicide legislation, C-14, and immediately made both sides unhappy. The pro-life and disabilities communities are concerned that doctors are going to become assassins, abandoning their mission to heal in order to kill. The pro-euthanasia side does not like that there are restrictions on who can be killed, wanting a broader law with fewer restrictions. National Post columnist Robyn Urback said the fact that neither side is happy proves the Trudeau government got it right – the Goldilocks Principle that if it is neither too hot nor too cold, it’s just right – but we find ourselves in agreement with her Post colleague, Andrew Coyne. He says that once we permit doctors to kill patients for some reasons it is just a matter of time until they can kill for any reason.
C-14 is poorly and vaguely worded. Perhaps this is because the government is in a rush to pass legislation before the artificial June 6, Supreme Court-imposed deadline to pass a law. Perhaps it is intentionally vague to make it easier to impose a wide-open license to assisted-suicide down the road.
We remind readers that the reason to oppose C-14 is not because it could lead to more permissive euthanasia laws in the future but that it permits any euthanasia and assisted-suicide now. It is always wrong to kill innocent human beings, even if they welcome death themselves. The mark of a compassionate society is love and caring, but killing is the abandonment of these attributes. Canada must invest in proper palliative care, treat people’s pain and mental anguish, and recapture the notion of redemptive suffering.
We warn those who support a limited euthanasia license that once Pandora’s Box is opened, all the evil is released. If one is uncomfortable with euthanasia or assisted-suicide for teens or children or for the mentally ill, understand it is just a matter of time until those restrictions fall. If one is satisfied with some element of the bill that appears to protect the vulnerable, be cognizant that sooner or later those safeguards are ignored or rescinded. If C-14 looks like the perfect euthanasia bill as it stands now, be aware it is ephemeral and will change.
Lastly, for those who think that some law is better than no law and that the June 6 deadline is paramount, we ask you to consider the possibilities. It may be easier to enact life-affirming and life-protecting laws in the vacuum that will be created by not passing C-14 than it will be to rescind it in the future. Our understanding is that only a constitutional amendment will overturn the egregious Carter decision, so that must be the goal. Having a permissive euthanasia law makes that goal much more difficult. We are also hopeful that without a law on the books in Ottawa, the provinces might add regulations that provide some greater scrutiny of assisted-suicide than the proposed federal bill requires.
In the Greek myth of Pandora’s Box, Pandora, the first female, opens the container (actually a jar) given to Prometheus’ brother Epimetheus from Zeus. It contained all of the world’s evil, which escaped. She closed it in time only to keep “hope” inside. We must keep hope that a Culture of Life will be restored in Canada, and we demonstrate that hope by unambiguously standing up against any expansion of the Culture of Death.
