end a Life
RON NICKEL / WWW.DESIGNPICS.COM
The EFC paper suggests if something can be done to meet
the underlying needs and fears of a patient, there will be fewer
requests to end life prematurely.
While patient autonomy is touted as one of the reasons for
choosing the time and method of death, autonomy is difficult to
measure, says Larry Worthen, a lawyer in Dartmouth, N.S., who
is now executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental
Society. Patients are always influenced by others such as hospital
staff, family members and physicians. In the past we believed
the virtuous thing was not to hasten death. “Do we want to have
a society where it becomes virtuous to end your life?”
Euthanasia and other forms of physician-assisted death (PAD)
are illegal in Canada. Bill C-384, a private member’s bill to legalize
euthanasia and assisted suicide, was defeated 228-59 in April 2010.
But in June 2012 a British Columbia Supreme Court judge ruled in
the Carter case Canada’s law against assisted suicide was unconstitu-
tional, and granted Gloria Taylor an exemption. In August the federal
government launched appeal, to be heard in
March. The EFC will participate as an inter-
vener (details at www.theEFC.ca/carter).
While proponents of PAD insist there is
no “slippery slope,” and there are enough
safeguards available to prevent abuse, many
Christian doctors and ethicists see it differently. Thirty years ago,
notes Cottle (the Vancouver physician), people were being kept
alive longer than was natural. Heroic measures were being taken
to prolong life. “I actually feel it’s the other way around now, es-
pecially with older people,” she says. “We’re giving up on people
sooner than we did, and sooner than we should.”
“It’s a recipe for elder abuse,” she adds. “There’s a big problem
with elder abuse, and it’s growing.”
Alex Schadenberg of London, Ont., executive director of the
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, agrees. He recently authored
a publication called Exposing Vulnerable People to Euthanasia
and Assisted Suicide (available at www.epcc.ca) in which he cites
numerous European, Canadian and American studies that show
physicians don’t always follow the guidelines in settings where
assisted suicide is legal (Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as
in Washington and Oregon). Among his findings:
• Patients are being euthanized without having made an explicit
request. (A study from the Flanders region of Belgium shows
one-third of euthanasia deaths are without explicit request.)
whose Life Is It?
Twenty years ago Sue Rodriguez asked the memorable question,
“Whose life is it, anyway?” Rodriguez was the British Columbia
woman who requested assisted suicide before the symptoms of ALS
got too difficult for her to bear. Her quest for autonomy, for controlling your own destiny, has only gotten stronger in society today.
