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| Euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada |
| Life |
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Written by Derek Miedema, a researcher at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada Member of Parliament Francine Lalonde is currently engaged in her third attempt to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide. Her private member’s bill, Bill C-384, would see doctors fulfilling requests to die for those over age 18 who “appear lucid.” Introducing her bill into the House of Commons on May 13, Ms. Lalonde began by saying: “Mr. Speaker, the time has come for this Parliament to find a way to decriminalize medical assistance in dying, which is of such vital importance to those whose suffering can no longer be relieved except by this ultimate compassion”. The question is this: Why is death the “ultimate compassion”? And how does agreeing that a loved one should die sooner fill a compassionate role? While advocates for doctor-assisted death make the compassion argument sound compelling, there are many internationally-respected specialists in end-of-life care who say a truly compassionate response is not death, but improved palliative care. Dr. José Pereira, an Ottawa-based palliative care doctor who worked for three years in Switzerland (where assisted suicide is allowed), told journalist Lorna Dueck recently on ListenUp TV about his experience in Switzerland. The number one lesson he learned there was “the importance of ensuring that there’s excellent access to palliative care for anyone who has a progressive, incurable illness.” Dr. Pereira’s experience in palliative care also led him to call for the term “dignity” to be removed from discussions of assisted suicide, since “around the world, thousands of people die receiving palliative care in a very dignified way.” Another expert who contributes to dignified death through palliative care is Dr. Harvey Chochinov, a palliative care specialist in Winnipeg. He has designed a therapeutic method to restore dignity to terminally ill patients in whom it has been weakened. “Dignity therapy” has been shown in research trials to restore the dignity of terminally ill patients while decreasing their suffering and depression, with no death involved. Understanding that depression is treatable is vital to our understanding of end-of-life issues for the terminally ill. A 2005 study in the Netherlands found that “the risk of a request for euthanasia by patients with depressed mood was 4.1 times higher than that of patients without depressed mood” when the study began. A 1995 Canadian study found that “The prevalence of diagnosed depressive syndromes was 58.8 per cent among patients with a desire to die and 7.7 per cent among patients without such a desire.” Advances in palliative end-of-life care show that pain can be treated. Physical pain can be eased. Chaplains and other specialists can help a person through spiritual and emotional pain. Death, in effect, short-circuits that natural process. Or, as Dr. Margaret Cottle, a palliative care physician and a clinical instruc¬tor at the University of British Columbia puts it: “Euthanasia kills the patient twice. The first time is when you look at the patient’s life and say, ‘Yeah, you’re right. Your life really isn’t worth living.’ And the second time is when you actually do it.” The terms “physician-assisted death” or “death with dignity” do not reflect the reality that Lalonde’s bill is largely about attempting to control death by identifying the time, place and method. Advocates then add the compassionate label, saying such control is the only way to achieve dignity. Good palliative care science says otherwise. And quite apart from the medical science, there are risks to vulnerable populations in legalizing assisted suicide. We would do well to learn from palliative care specialists like Dr. Pereira and Dr. Chochinov, among others. |
