Quebec could be the first Canadian province to allow terminally ill patients to end their lives
A landmark report to the Quebec legislature in March 2012 [opens to PDF] suggested the province legalize doctor-assisted euthanasia. It recommended the Quebec government make it legal for doctors to help the terminally ill die, if they want to, under “exceptional circumstances.” The report was issued after more than two years of deliberations and public hearings.
In January 2013, the Quebec junior health minister Veronique Hivon said the panel behind that report has determined that provinces have the legal jurisdiction to legislate in matters of health and that future Quebec legislation would clarify how acts to end a life wouldn’t be considered suicide. The minister hopes to introduce legislation setting out the rules for medically assisted end-of-life procedures before the provincial assembly adjourns for the summer.
The Quebec plan has set off a range of strong–and perhaps predictable–responses. A spokesperson for federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said Ottawa’s position remains the same: opposed. Political commentator Tasha Kheiriddin says Ottawa has surrendered moral leadership to the courts. Quebec Catholic bishops have labelled the bill ‘dangerous’ and ‘ignorant of medical reality’. The Calgary Herald says Quebec is trying to bypass the law of the land, driven by Parti Quebecois politics. Columnist Barbara Kay appears to equate legalized euthanasia, or ‘death with dignity’, with capital punishment. Steve Weatherbe, who is president of a group that appears to oppose both abortion and euthanasia, says those seeking assisted suicide are a “small, legalistic and atheistic elite” and those opposing it are a “broad-based coalition of grassroots disabilities groups, religious organizations and pro-life groups.” And Margaret Somerville, a professor of law and medicine at McGill University, asks, “If [euthanasia] is not killing, what is it?”
A national poll shows that 67% of Canadians support legalizing assisted suicide (with 81% support in Quebec). And polls show majority support for ‘right to die’ legislation in 12 European countries, with 71% of Britons supporting it.
We speak with Wanda Morris, executive director of Dying With Dignity.
