LifeCanada, a national pro-life education organization, called for prayer and fasting in light of the Quebec government’s Bill-52 that calls for the legalization of euthanasia. The proposed legislation “offers end-of-life care to those living in Quebec which will include both terminal palliative sedation, as well as medically assisted dying, or medical aid in dying, a euphemism for euthanasia,” said a Sept. 5 LifeCanada press release.
“The likelihood of the legislation passing in Quebec is high,” said LifeCanada executive director Natalie Sonnen. “While the federal government could conceivably intervene to legally challenge any such law in Quebec as a violation of the Criminal Code, it is far from certain that Ottawa will take such a step given the political baggage it would carry.”
Quebec will be holding public hearings on the bill Sept. 17-Oct. 10. In light of the “looming debate on euthanasia,” LifeCanada urged “all Canadians to pray and fast for Quebec, that they will not accept this move to legalize the intentional taking of human life under the guide of medical aid.”
LifeCanada cited a recently commissioned Environics poll that showed “Canadians most likely to be affected by legal euthanasia — the elderly and the disabled — are most opposed to changing the law.
“Among Canadians over the age of 60, 48 per cent opposed legalizing euthanasia compared to 40 per cent of all Canadians,” the poll found.
The rights league urged its members to join the fast to block Bill-52, both in its newsletter and an e-mail alert.
“This issue concerns all Canadians,” said the alert. “If Quebec is successful in challenging the federal prohibition against euthanasia by calling the act of killing patients ‘medical care,’ it will affect all the provinces in Canada.”
“Killing is not medical care,” said league executive director Joanne McGarry.
The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada also put out a call to its member churches and organizations to fast and pray.
“Euthanasia and assisted suicide are currently illegal in Canada, as both actions are proscribed in our Criminal Code as homicide,” wrote EFC legal counsel Faye Sonier on the Activate CFPL blog of the EFC’s Centre for Faith and Public Life. “In a weakly veiled attempt to circumvent federal law, and existing Supreme Court of Canada decisions that affirm the constitutionality of the federal prohibition on these behaviours, the government of Quebec introduced legislation in June 2013 to authorize euthanasia under the guise of ‘health care.’ ” Health care is under provincial jurisdiction, while criminal law is federal, she noted.
“(Bill-52) defines ‘end-of-life’ care as ‘palliative care provided to persons at the end of their lives,’ which encompasses ‘terminal palliative sedation’ and ‘medical aid in dying,’ both of which are forms of euthanasia,” she warned. “This position is not consistent with the global palliative care movement’s understanding of palliative care. Palliative care by definition cannot be used to end lives. The government of Quebec’s reframing of palliative care contradicts the World Health Organization’s internationally accepted definition.”