Ravaged by cancer, or stricken with pain, you want to die. You have your wits about you, and the facts in front of you. Your doctor should be allowed to help you end your life, an expert panel of researchers in Canada has recommended – and the Criminal Code should not call it murder.
Pointing to the widening gap between public opinion and the law that makes euthanasia illegal in this country, a team of researchers appointed by the Royal Society of Canada to study end-of-life care says that informed Canadians should have the right to choose death within a regulated system, even if they have not been diagnosed with a terminal illness.
The report proposes a system modelled after countries such as the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been legalized since 2002, in which patients may request assisted suicide or euthanasia when a doctor has determined they are competent to make the decision, and have done so voluntarily.
Terminal illness should not be a requirement, explained committee chair Udo Schuklenk, Ontario research chair in bioethics at Queen’s University, at a news conference prior to the release of the report. That’s because the term is too vague and doctors cannot give a precise prediction on length of life. Some patients, he said, “may well be suffering greatly and permanently but they are not imminently dying. Our conclusion was that there was no principal basis that we can think of for excluding such people.”
If the Criminal Code is not amended, the report proposes that provincial prosecutors use discretion to avoid laying charges, or handle cases outside the traditional court system.
This is a significant recommendation to provinces, because the Conservative government has declared the matter closed and has not planned to change the law – a position reiterated Monday by Justice Minister Rob Nicholson on the eve of the report’s release. “Euthanasia and assisted suicide raise complex ethical, legal and medical issues, and many of them involve competing interests,” a spokesperson with the minister’s office said by e-mail. “We have no plans to propose any reforms to this area of the law. Parliament has already voted on this issue; we will respect the will of Parliament.”
At the same time, however, cases continue to wind their way through the courts; this week, the Supreme Court of British Columbia is hearing the case of Gloria Taylor, a 63-year-old woman with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, who is asking for the right to die on her own terms rather than face a slow and painful death.
In its report, the panel cites public opinion surveys that have shown that the majority of Canadians are in favour of legalizing euthanasia. The report argues that withdrawing or stopping life-sustaining care with a patient’s consent (which is allowed by law) is no different ethically than actively acting on patients’ wishes to help them die. Even so, the report says that doctors who object on moral or cultural grounds to following those wishes should be allowed to decline, while referring patients to another physician.
Critics of legalizing euthanasia have argued that it would risk the lives of vulnerable people, especially the elderly, who might feel pressured to make the choice. “Do safeguards work?” asked Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Association. “Safeguards are only as good as the doctors that facilitate them.”
