In 1972, the criminal offence of attempted suicide was removed from the Criminal Code on the grounds that it was a social or health problem rather than a matter for the criminal courts. An individual committing suicide, however, is quite a different situation from that of an individual assisting someone else to commit suicide. The latter is currently prohibited under the Criminal Code.
However, Bloc Québécois MP Francine Lalonde (La Pointe-de-l'Île) introduced a bill to allow assisted suicide in February 2009, entitled “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (right to die with dignity)”. This is the third time MP Lalonde has introduced such a bill into the Canadian Parliament. Her bill, if passed, would allow any individual to “assist” someone to commit suicide with or without a doctor present. Fortunately, her previous two assisted suicide bills died when elections were called. Her current assisted suicide bill has not yet come up for debate. Seniors, who are especially vulnerable, should be deeply concerned about her attempt to legalize what, up to now, has been criminal – namely, assisting someone else’s death by suicide.
Other pressure, too, has begun to take place to eliminate assisted suicide as a criminal offense. For example, as usual in Canada, when highly controversial issues are placed before Parliament, changes in the law are pushed by way of government funded agencies operated by appointed individuals. We witnessed this in the same-sex marriage issue, when the now, fortunately, disbanded Law Commission of Canada came out forcefully in support of same-sex marriage in 2001, with a document entitled “Beyond Conjugality: Recognizing and supporting close personal adult relationships.“ This paper was promoted, far and wide, as “the” final word on the issue in Parliament and, conveniently, in the courts at the time the same-sex marriage legal challenges were being argued. Judges quoted from this report in their judgements supporting same-sex marriage.
Today, we are witnessing our taxes being used to support assisted suicide by way of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The latter organization was created in 2000 to fund health research in Canada. In the fiscal year 2008-09, it received $928.6 million in funding from the federal government.
CIHR hosts an interactive discussion series called “Café Scientifique” or “Science on Tap”, to engage the public in “informal discussions about scientific subjects” and provides $3,000 in funding to host sessions on various topics. Canadians don't object to health research and informative discussions on science, but the public should be aware that its tax dollars, via CIHR, are being spent to promote assisted suicide, without providing, at the very least, both sides of this controversial issue.
Yet, on March 24, 2009, CIHR hosted a “Science on Tap” session, entitled “Whose Life is it Anyway? Assisted Suicide in Canada.” The speaker was Dr. Joclyn Downie, Canada Research Chair, Health and Law Policy, and Professor of Law and Medicine at Dalhousie University, who has written a book called “Dying Justice: A Case for Decriminalizing Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in Canada”. In 2006, she co-authored an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, with Sanda Rogers, Faculty of Law, Ottawa University, entitled “Abortion: Ensuring Access,” which caused an uproar of protest from Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) readers for its blatant pro-abortion stance and some inaccurate statements. That article claimed that a health care professional, who fails to provide an appropriate referral for an abortion, commits malpractice.
Talk filled with misinformation and important omissions
Dr. Downie (who has a doctorate in law and is not a medical doctor) spent one hour building her case in favour of assisted suicide and giving only a feeble presentation of the other side of the issue. This was followed by one hour of audience questions and comments. Downie’s presentation was one-sided, while the questioners almost exclusively put forth reasonable objections to her dangerous message. Amazingly, organizers from CIHR denied that Ms Downie was an “advocate”, insisting that she was merely an “expert” (obviously one with a specific agenda).
Downie claimed she started her career in “care of the dying” and now has expanded her career to include assisted suicide, which, she pretends, is “not contrary to palliative care.” She also asserts that “assisted suicide can promote palliative care”; it's “all about a good death according to the wishes of the individual.” She claimed that assisted suicide today is being carried out in practice and should be decriminalized. That is, she alleges that, although there's a law against assisted suicide on the books, the law of the street thinks otherwise, as evidenced by the fact that few who assist suicides incur jail terms for doing so.
Downie based her case for assisted suicide on the values of personal autonomy, equality and self-determination, as exemplified in the Charter. The law permits suicide, she said, so on the basis of equality, it should permit self-determination in end of life issues. That is, she argued that it is discrimination under the Charter to allow those without disabilities to choose assisted suicide, but not to allow those who are unable to commit suicide themselves to commit suicide by preventing someone else from assisting them to do so. If we don’t permit assisted suicide she argued, then we must recriminalize all suicides. Further, Dr. Downie insisted that assisting someone to commit suicide is so simple, that it does not need to be carried out by a medical professional! This position is exactly what MP Lalonde’s bill promotes – namely, any individual could “assist” someone to commit suicide with or without a doctor present.
Ms Downie painted opponents of assisted suicide as basing their views on religious values. She stated that the sanctity of life is not grounds for prohibiting assisted suicide. She downplayed concerns about the “slippery slope” and claimed that there has been no increase in involuntary euthanasia in the countries where euthanasia has been legalized – a clear untruth. While claiming to use “science” to promote her views, she did admit that statistics are difficult to obtain because personnel don't easily admit to euthanizing and assisting at suicides. Withdrawing treatment and nutrition is as much an act of assisted suicide as direct action, she claimed. If we allow withdrawing treatment, we should allow positive, assisted suicide, according to her flawed logic.
Even though Dr. Downie claims she is concerned with palliative care, she appeared to have a poor knowledge of how to relieve pain – just allow individuals to kill themselves was her only solution.
She also made the questionable claim that assisted suicide legislation could contain restrictions to limit abuses: Dr. Downie has ignored the liberal law in Switzerland, where a large number of non-terminally ill men and women are now seeking suicide because they are “tired of living”. That is, once assisted suicide is permitted, it inevitably broadens in practice. For example, the prestigious bioethics journal The Hasting Center Report, (January February 2008), included an article written by two Dutch bio-ethicists, who defended the practice in the Netherlands of openingly killing newborns with severe disabilities. According to this article, babies who have no chance of living past infancy, or who have disabilities that leave them in chronic pain, paralysis or inability to communicate, are “better off dead than forced to endure”. This deliberate killing of newborns is a vast extension of the Netherlands’ initial law on euthanasia, which was to apply to terminally ill patients only.
Downie, by the way, has drafted a bill, too, which could be tabled and become law, with “protections built in” she claims. This issue must be confronted she asserts, otherwise “many Canadians will continue to suffer and we will all collectively fail.”
The Audience Objected to Downie’s Theories
Fortunately, an Alert notice about Downie’s talk on assisted suicide went out through the pro-life network so that many well informed individuals were in the audience to counter the misinformation presented by Downie. The audience also questioned why the format of the tax funded discussion only presented the distorted views of Downie on assisted suicide. Why were there not presenters covering both sides fairly? More questions: Does Downie's position represent the general views of the sponsor of the event, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research? Apparently not, although the presenter sat in front of a backdrop plastered with CIHR logos.
One member of the audience, a psychiatrist, told Downie that “it is easier to kill rather than give comfort”; that if suicide is OK what does that say about us as a people; the choices we make affect other people, and the effects don't just end at the hospital. He stated that patients often change their minds about suicide; they may suffer from depression for 2 years, 5 years, and then come out of it. And why should a health professional want to kill somebody? He said that palliative sedation is able to relieve pain completely.
Downie responded to the psychiatrist by stating that the “vulnerable” are not the ones who use assisted suicide where it is available: she asserted that only “competent patients” would decide. But the psychiatrist viewed competency over time, and recognized the different psychological states of the patient. And who would decide competency?
One Member of Parliament present was concerned that state endorsed suicide would send the wrong message to young Canadians who are at high risk for suicide, such as aboriginal youth. It would be difficult to convince teens to choose the more difficult path of life. Downie was reminded that the rate of suicide among Canadian youth has increased 400% to 500% in recent years. Another MP objected to the blurring of terms related to pain relief, relief of mental and physical suffering, and the direct act which causes death. Suicide cannot be prosecuted because the person is dead, whereas with assisted suicide, there is another person involved still present and alive. He stated that euthanasia is not private, as suggested: it is a public act and involves others. It is dangerous to give someone the right to take another's life. Safeguards can come and go.
Another questioner stated that safeguards could be placed in the bill, but Parliament could make amendments which would remove such so-called safeguards. The blurring of the term “withdrawal of medical” treatment was also criticized, since it could mean withdrawal of extraordinary treatment, which is permissible, or, alternatively, withdrawal of essential care, such as food and water, which is not permissible.
Conclusion
It was encouraging that, during question period, light was shed on Downie's questionable statements, but disconcerting that our taxes, intended for research and education, are being used to misinform in a very unscientific way, and to promote acts which are criminal.
Please see accompanying article in the Montreal Gazette, April 14, 2009, by columnist Hugh Anderson. It tells another story about assisted suicide. |
