“Let there be no doubt: what Bill 52 is proposing is to cross a red line,” said a brief from the grassroots group Living with Dignity delivered Sept. 25. “A big red line. The one that has been drawn from the beginning of our country and that is universally accepted around the world: a citizen cannot cause death of another citizen, for any reason except in cases of self-defence.”
Living with Dignity, a non-religious, non-partisan organization formed in 2010, pointed out the only exception over the years has been the death penalty, which is now banned in Canada. The death penalty ban is not a betrayal of democracy but an affirmation of basic rights, the group asserted.
“And the right to life takes precedence over any other right, despite the changing mood of the population.”
Living with Dignity predicted the premature death of hundreds, “and possibly thousands,” of Quebeckers if Bill 52 becomes law.
On Sept. 24, the Physicians’ Alliance for the Total Refusal of Euthanasia (PATRE) told the committee: “The refusal to inflict death must remain an impassable barrier in a democratic Quebec.”
“We are here today on behalf of all the ordinary doctors who are very worried about the effect on their patients in the event that Bill 52 is adopted,” said PATRE’s brief, delivered to the committee by Dr. Catherine Ferrier, a family physician who works in a geriatric clinic, Dr Francois Primeau, a geriatric psychiatrist, and Dr. Serge Daneault, a palliative care physician and researcher.
“We believe that this bill is unworthy of Quebec and must be abandoned. Many more humane solutions to the widespread fear of a painful death are available.”
PATRE, formed in 2012, has 593 physician members, 473 from Quebec, the rest from outside the province. An additional 10,000 citizens have signed PATRE’s Manifesto: “Caring, not Killing.”
“Bill 52 also enshrines the universal right to obtain euthanasia (medical aid in dying), but it subjects the right to obtain palliative care to the limits of our establishments’ human, material and financial resources,” the brief said. “As we know, euthanasia costs little while palliative care requires personnel and infrastructure costs that are far from being negligible.”
The brief points out most of the people pushing for euthanasia are not physicians, and those that are do not work in fields directly related to the care of the dying.
“Because they clearly see the risks related to euthanasia, 90 per cent of palliative care physicians are fiercely opposed to the legalization of this practice,” the brief said.
Not only does the brief address the risks to vulnerable patients, it examines the danger to the practice of medicine should Bill 52 become law.
“We doctors, we know that once we abolish the prohibition to kill, the reciprocal trust that is the foundation of the patient-doctor relationship will be shaken, not to speak of the adverse effect on the psyche of the doctor who will give death in a premeditated fashion.”
PATRE decried euthanasia as an injustice.
“Killing is not care,” the brief said. “Killing a patient, even upon his or her request, is grave ethical misconduct in a so-called civilized society.”
In addition, an array of national groups, including Priests for Life Canada and the Catholic Civil Rights League, have demanded in a joint statement that Quebec withdraw Bill 52 to legalize euthanasia.
“Concerned about the more vulnerable members of our society, we, the undersigned, deplore the legislation proposed in Quebec that would make it legal for a physician to deliberately take the life of his or her patient under circumstances of alleged suffering,” says the joint statement signed by 19 people representing nearly as many groups.
Organized by LifeCanada, a national education pro-life organization, the statement warns Bill 52 would involve “a momentous shift in medical ethics and public policy.”
“We know that with the acceptance and legalization of (euthanasia) comes an immense loss of commitment to people’s lives, a loss of incentive to provide quality end-of-life care, a weakening of the resolve of the health care profession to truly work for the benefit of patients, and an opening for abuse of the vulnerable who have no one to advocate for them,” the statement says.
“Bill 52 has been modelled on Belgium’s law, but there have been gross abuses in that country, documented by the Canadian Medical Association Journal that should sound an alarm to the lawmakers of Canada,” said LifeCanada’s executive director Natalie Sonnen.