By Dave Andrusko

I've tried to increasingly include developments outside the United States so our readers can at least have a glimpse where other cultures are headed. Sometimes they are miles ahead [or, better put, downward] of where we are, other times you see government's taking the public's pulse to see where people are--usually as part of a campaign to knock down protective abortion statutes, or, as in Quebec, open the door wide to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

We talked last week about how a governmental committee--"Dying With Dignity"--has begun to hold a series of public hearings across the province of Quebec to "gauge public reaction to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide," as CBC News put it. The trigger for the recent spate of debates appears to be a combination of polls that showed large support for "relaxing" laws; and the decision last year by the Quebec College of Physicians to "endorsed euthanasia," as an editorial in the Montreal Gazette explained, "as appropriate under certain circumstances."

Reading press accounts of the first few days of hearings, the reader is told that there were pretty much equal representation of those in favor and those opposed. The proponents had nothing new--assisted suicide is already being practiced, patient autonomy, etc., etc. The recycled arguments still are unpersuasive except to the already-convinced.

Opponents pointed to the experience in Belgium and the Netherlands and the rise of non-consensual deaths, usually of the elderly, those with diminished mental capacities, and/or those in chronic pain. Their emphasis overwhelmingly was on palliative care.

By far the most incredible response came from the lips of Hélène Bolduc, president of the Right to Die With Dignity Association, whose overall position was characterized by CBC News as believing "that the debate is being sidetracked by calls for better palliative care, more hospital beds and better pain management"!

"It's not because I don't believe in this type of care," she said, "but palliative care shouldn't be practised with dogged determination." According to CBC News, "She likened the palliative care community to the church, with doctors acting as 'apostles of redemption.'" And for good measure, "We seem like radicals now," Bolduc said of her association. "I am not a radical."

It's important to remember that last spring Canada's legislators voted on what's called a private member's bill introduced by Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde that would have "liberalized" euthanasia laws. It went down in flames, 228 to 59.

But it also true that while "Quebec cannot by itself decriminalize assisted suicide--only Ottawa can change the criminal code," according to David Akin, writing in the Toronto Sun, "Quebec could draw up new guidelines for provincial prosecutors that would have the practical effect of decriminalizing assisted suicide in that province. That would surely force a debate in Ottawa."

Let's hope they grasp the wisdom of the Gazette editorial. "Authorized euthanasia would surely be cheaper and more efficient than improved care and affording true dignity to the living. But efficiency should not be the prime criterion in this matter. Quebecers had better be careful what they wish for."

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