Euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada

[sandra]

UPDATE September 24, 2009

The president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops is urging members of Parliament not to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide and to avoid ambiguous language in discussing the issue.

“It is legitimate to use medication and other means to alleviate suffering, even if a side effect can be the shortening of life expectancy,” writes dying Archbishop James Weisgerber of Winnipeg. “It is also legitimate for someone to refuse medical procedures that are found to be especially burdensome. But what is never acceptable is the direct and intentional killing of the depressed, handicapped, sick, elderly or dying.”

[sandra]

A number of Criminal Code provisions impinge upon the issues of euthanasia and cessation of treatment.

Section 14 of the Code provides that:

No person is entitled to consent to have death inflicted on him, and such consent does not affect the criminal responsibility of any person by whom death may be inflicted on the person by whom consent is given.

In the medical context, a doctor who, at a patient’s request, gives the patient a lethal injection would be criminally liable.

A number of other provisions of the Criminal Code may also come into play, depending upon the circumstances; these provisions include:

■section 45 (Surgical operations);
■section 215 (Duty of persons to provide necessaries);
■section 216 (Duty of persons undertaking acts dangerous to life);
■section 217 (Duty of persons undertaking acts);
■section 219 (Criminal negligence);
■section 220 (Causing death by criminal negligence);
■section 221 (Causing bodily harm by criminal negligence);
■section 222 (Homicide);
■section 229 (Murder);
■section 231 (Classification of murder);
■section 234 (Manslaughter);
■section 245 (Administering noxious thing); and
■the various assault and bodily harm provisions.

Theoretically, one would expect euthanasia to be prosecuted as first-degree murder, because there is an intent to cause death, which is the definition of murder, and the act is most often planned and deliberate, which is the definition of first-degree murder. However, charges of euthanasia have been influenced principally by other criteria: the fact that the primary intent is to relieve suffering; the unpredictable attitude of juries; and technical difficulties in proving the exact cause of death when a person is in any case close to death and taking considerable pain medication. Charges in Canada have ranged from administering a noxious substance, to manslaughter, to murder.

Read more...

http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/li...pubs/919-e.htm

[sandra]

As in the United States and many other countries, suicide is legal in Canada, but assisted suicide (PAS) is not.

A single federal law to enable PAS could be created and would apply throughout the country. Private Members' bills have since been introduced into the Canadian Parliament to legalize PAS. They have all failed.

[sandra]

A group of Quebec doctors are adamantly opposed to their college of physicians' upcoming proposal to legalize a form of euthanasia -- something they liken to a "right to kill."

In an open letter the doctors warn against legislation that would give them the right to decide who gets to live and who gets to die.

"Killing would then become a therapeutic possibility for the medical profession," wrote Andre Bourque, a Montreal doctor leading the charge against the college of physicians' policy to be tabled this fall.

The letter is signed by five doctors, but they say they have the support of more than 100 of their colleagues.

Source: www.canada.com

[sandra]

Chantal Sébire was a retired French teacher who suffered from esthesioneuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer, and fought for the right to die through euthanasia.

Chantal Sébire who suffered from a painful facial tumor and had drawn headlines across France with her quest for doctor-assisted suicide.

The illness left her blind, and with no sense of smell or taste, her lawyer said. She could not use morphine to ease the intense eye pain because of the side effects.

Sébire first gained recognition in February 2008 when she made a public appeal to the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to allow her to die through euthanasia, stating that "One would not allow an animal to go through what I have endured."

On March 17, 2008, she lost her case in a French court, with the magistrate noting that while French law does allow for the removal of life-support equipment for terminally ill patients, it does not allow a doctor to take action to end a patient's life. After the decision, Sébire said "I now know how to get my hands on what I need, and if I don't get it in France, I will get it elsewhere".

On March 19, 2008, she was found dead in her home.

Unlike in France, euthanasia is legal in both Belgium and the Netherlands, and Luxembourg is in the process of passing a law to allow it. In Switzerland, counselors or physicians can prepare the lethal dose, but patients must take it on their own.The tumor had burrowed through her sinuses and nasal cavities, causing her nose to swell to several times its original size, and pushing one of her eyes out of her head.