Canada's Euthanasia Bill
BY Mark Pickup

This past June, Canadian Private Member's Bill 407 was quietly presented to the House of Commons for first reading. It happened just before parliamentary summer recess. Most people didn't even notice C-407 because the nation's attention was focused on passage of other controversial legislation.
Bill C-407 is officially dubbed "An Act to amend the Criminal Code (right to die with dignity)." It is dangerous because, soothing language notwithstanding, it is an act for the right to kill the sick and depressed with impunity! The bill proposes to:

* Allow anyone to kill a suicidal depressed or sick person, not just the terminally ill.

* The suicidal person only needs to be suffering from severe physical or mental pain. Depression could easily qualify.

* The suicidal person being killed must be at least 18 years of age. That opens the door for killing depressed teenagers.

* The suicidal person does not need to have tried all suitable therapies; they may have even refused available treatments.

* The suicidal person must "appear" to be lucid (not necessarily be lucid and the person making that assessment of lucidity need not be psychologically or medically qualified to decide on such matters).

* The suicidal person must request suicide twice, more than 10 days apart. It doesn't even need to be in writing. The only thing that needs to be in writing is who the suicidal person wants to kill them. And that designated person does not need to be a doctor, only assisted by a "team of persons entitled under the laws of a province to provide health services."

* If the person to be killed does not appear to be lucid, then they must be euthanized by a physician.

Team of persons entitled to provide health services?! It does not have to be physicians. Just persons legally entitled to provide health services. Nurses, pharmacists, nurse's aides, physio-therapists, respiratory therapists, X-ray technicians, and laboratory assistants. The World Health Organization defines health as a "state of complete physical, mental, or social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" (see http://www.who.int/about/definition/en/).

In short, C-407 would open the gates wide in Canada for euthanasia!

Granted, Private Member's bills rarely pass into law. But it does serve as a sort of trial balloon for the government to gauge public openness to euthanasia--otherwise known as culling the herd of its weak and sickly members.

Canada's Justice Minister Irwin Cotler is on record as saying perhaps it's time to reconsider euthanasia and assisted suicide. He seems to think that public attitudes toward euthanasia have changed in the past 10 years since a Senate Committee last considered the topic. What does he think has changed, other than a general coarsening of attitudes?

The organization I founded, HumanLifeMatters, wrote to the Justice Minister to voice concerns about Bill C-407. HumanLifeMatters board member Dr. Heidi Janz (herself disabled with cerebral palsy) expressed alarm about the bill's potential impact on the well-being of the elderly, the chronically ill, and the disabled.

Dr. Janz asked Irwin Cotler to affirm his commitment to justice for all Canadians, by working to ensure that assisted suicide and euthanasia remain criminal offences. She informed Mr. Cotler that a similar Oregon law passed in 1997 has already resulted in discrimination. Dr. Janz stated:

"Notwithstanding the 'safety-net' function of Canada's socialized medical system, any future legalization of physician-assisted suicide in Canada would inevitably result in some disabled and elderly Canadians being placed in a position of ... having to justify their use of resources to maintain their very existence."

Mr. Cotler's August 26, 2005, response to Dr. Janz was appalling. Describing the subject as a "complex" legal and moral issue, Mr. Cotler denied the existence of a "clear consensus among Canadians on how to handle the broad issues surrounding euthanasia." He further averred that "questions ranging from the quality of medical care available to seriously ill and dying people to the moral questions involving a person's power to control his or her own life and even the value of life itself [emphasis added] must be considered when debating this subject."

Does Minister Cotler envision a different standard of care for seriously ill and dying Canadians than for the rest of the population? Better or worse? The value of whose lives are up for debate when considering euthanasia and assisted suicide? Of course he's referring to the incurably ill, the seriously ill, and the dying.  I flew to Ottawa and met with senior staff for the Canadian Justice Minister on October 27, 2005. I questioned the minister's quote. "We live in a democracy.

We're open to different ideas," they told me. (Even the value of human life?)

The senior bureaucrats assured me that the Justice Minister would not be supporting C-407 and there are no plans for introduction of a government-sponsored euthanasia bill. (They didn't exactly drip with sincerity.)

They seemed honestly surprised that people with disabilities and the chronically ill might be threatened by public policy sympathetic to euthanasia. I met with Canada's Minister of Social Development, the Hon. Ken Dryden, who expressed concern that a disabled Canadian like me would find a euthanasia bill threatening.

The rest of my time in Canada's capital city of Ottawa was spent meeting with many Members of Parliament. I don't think C-407 will pass into law. I am not convinced, however, that Canadians can rest assured that another euthanasia bill is not on the horizon.
Public discussion must occur about whether Canadians want to go down the euthanasia path. Do we really want to make the value of human life negotiable as public policy?

It will be the lives of imperfect human life that will be negotiated. Oh Canada!

Mark Pickup is a Canadian writer and disability rights activist.