Ontario’s palliative care doctors are warning that the government is not ready for “an imminent spike in the number of people facing end-of-life.”

EDMONTON – Citing the needs of fragile patients, Covenant Health has clarified how assessments are done in its facilities for patients who want to end their lives under provisions of Canada’s assisted suicide and euthanasia law.

OTTAWA – Palliative care advocates are applauding a new national framework document that has adopted an international definition of palliative care that excludes euthanasia and assisted suicide as elements of patient care. 

As Parliament awaits the imminent arrival of a report on assisted suicide that may make a bad situation even worse, it’s worth noting some chilling stories from the first countries to legalize medically induced death. This could be our future.

OTTAWA – Ontario doctors who are suing the Ontario physicians’ college over conscience rights received good news Nov. 8 when the province of Ontario dropped its intervention on behalf of the college.

The “cold shadow” of euthanasia is spreading, warns Cardinal Thomas Collins.

On rare occasions I get clear signals of what needs to be done in my life. When it comes, it arrives through people I respect. Each gives me the answer I need but I did not know I needed till I heard it. 

VANCOUVER – The rate of medically-assisted deaths on Vancouver Island is about five times higher than in the rest of the country.

EDMONTON – At what point does a health care provider become complicit in the act of medically-assisted death? 

Do no harm

It’s distressing to know that doctors from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children have published an article on how best to extend voluntary euthanasia to children. This is sad but not surprising, as Canada both at home and abroad pushes to extend the culture of death. 

The state decides what is good “care” for the patient, and what is not, including the appropriate time to intentionally kill. That a sick child or person is most often not capable of making a responsible decision is of no concern. Society says we must respect the patient’s “right” to end his life. This is similar to the insane idea that students have the “right” to transgender without the parents being informed. What the self wants, not family and God, is paramount.

The medical goal should be to save lives and do no harm. Instead, the authors corrupt the aim by suggesting efficient ways to kill. To give patients the autonomy to be killed and then pay doctors to find economical ways do so is not medical care. It’s reducing life to a product, one more thing to use and abuse and then discard at will. 

Canada is in terrible need of architects of the culture of life and true care.

Lou Iacobelli,

Toronto

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Vote wisely

A recent news report mentioned that the Halton Catholic District School Board trustees had cancelled a motion disallowing various charities from benefiting from school-run fund-raising because of connections to causes whose agendas contained elements contrary to Catholic teaching. This move followed protests from students and parents. The majority of trustees bowed to the will of the protesters.

On Oct. 22 parents and taxpayers will have the task of electing not only city mayors and councillors, but also their representative on the school board. In the case of the latter group, the trustees will be answerable not only for the financial and material welfare of the students, but also for their spiritual welfare. It is a heavy responsibility.

Let us hope Catholics in Ontario take care to elect trustees whose values are not in conflict with Catholic teachings and who make sure to eschew the secular attitudes often promoted by some candidates. These are the people we entrust with our most precious resource, our children.

C. Daffern,

Scarborough, Ont.

Canada’s sudden withdrawal from the World Medical Association is likely due to a Canadian delegation feeling wounded and angry after their proposal to alter the world body’s code of ethics on euthanasia was resoundingly rejected, according to a Canadian doctor.

TORONTO – In a prestigious medical journal, doctors from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children have laid out policies and procedures for administering medically assisted death to children, including scenarios where the parents would not be informed until after the child dies.

CORNWALL – Canada’s Catholic bishops aim to have palliative care resources available in every parish to help Catholics grapple with suffering and dying under a regime of legal euthanasia.

VATICAN – Caring for the sick, especially those near death, cannot be reduced simply to giving them medicine, but must include providing healing and comfort that gives their lives value and meaning, Pope Francis said.

New federal government rules to monitor euthanasia and assisted suicide are opaque and weak at a time when legally induced deaths are rising at alarming levels, warn several organizations.