Juno News - January 12, 2023Canada’s obsession with euthanasia has gone too far
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Summary
In March, a law that the government passed just under two years ago will go into effect which will mean that people who have only a mental illness will be eligible for state-facilitated assisted suicide. So the government will kill you if you are dealing with a serious mental illness, as evidenced by the fact that you want someone to kill you.
Transcript
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Just to bring you up to speed, if you haven't been following this in the last few months,
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in March, a law that the government passed just under two years ago will go into effect,
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which will mean that people who have only a mental illness will be eligible for state-facilitated assisted suicide.
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So the government will kill you if you are dealing with a serious mental illness,
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as evidenced by the fact that you want someone to kill you.
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This is something that I've talked about as being near and dear to my heart as a survivor of suicide,
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And as this has been discussed, we've seen more and more horror stories of people that have called up
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the Veterans Affairs Support Hotline because they need some form of assistance
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and are instead told to consider ending their lives.
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People that need a mechanical chairlift that want a mechanical chairlift
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and think maybe the government can give them some assistance in getting it
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and are instead told perhaps you need medical assistance in dying,
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This is becoming a bit of a problem in Canada, which has a larger rate of these state-facilitated deaths
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which means perhaps there is a culture of death in Canada that the Liberal government has allowed to take hold
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and that certainly a large number of Canadian doctors are allowing to take hold,
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And I'm very glad that there is some pushback here, including, I'd say,
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a growing movement of people that are not even ideologically against assisted dying,
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but don't like how the government has opened the floodgates in the way it has.
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Nicole Scheidel is the Executive Director of Canadian Physicians for Life and joins me now.
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So obviously there's been such tremendous attention in the last few weeks,
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in the last couple of months in particular here,
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but I know your group and a lot of other physicians have really been sounding the alarm about this for quite some time.
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So why has it taken so long for there to actually be, in your view, some more public attention to this?
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Honestly, I think it's the media that has now been paying attention to the stories that are out there and reporting them,
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and that has come to the attention of the government in a way that was not happening before.
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They were not really listening to the disabled community.
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There was lots of groups, disability groups, who were talking very loudly about Bill C-7 as it went through and their concerns.
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And I think part of it was because of the lockdown over COVID and the virtual parliament.
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It was very hard to get the attention of the parliamentarians.
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But now that the House is back in session, people are back in Ottawa,
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the media is maybe not so focused on COVID and looking at some of the other issues that are happening.
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And these kinds of stories are now starting to come to the surface.
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And I think that's what's causing the government to have some pause in what they're doing.
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I know when assisted dying laws first came in in Canada to allow it,
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there was this concern that a lot of people raised, myself among them,
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that there was going to be that slippery slope.
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And we were told, no, no, it's not going to be like that.
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And we're seeing now that the slippery slope was very real.
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And I think it's actually gone even a lot further than some of the more cynical critics of this had argued.
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When you have people that are going through this process because their issue is not even medical,
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but it's related to affordable housing, for example.
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And I think it's happened with such a speed in Canada that it's pretty hard to argue that there wasn't a slippery slope.
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I think one of the other things that we're seeing is just the impact of proposed changes in the law.
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So we have psychiatrists who are now telling us that they have patients who are refusing treatment
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because they know that euthanasia will be open to them as suffering from just simply a mental condition as a sole issue for euthanasia.
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And so now they're refusing treatment because that's what they're aiming towards.
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Explain to me, if you can, where some of the doctors that are more activist in nature are on this,
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because it seems like, on one hand, you've got a lot of doctors that are uncomfortable with this,
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that aren't necessarily pro-life or particularly political on this.
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But you also have a subset that really seem to believe, from my assessment anyway,
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that assisted suicide is a right, and who is anyone else to tell you you shouldn't be able to avail yourself of it?
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Well, and I think there are some physicians who are very enthusiastic about euthanasia-assisted suicide as the best way to die.
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And so they are seeing that as the solution to many of societal ills,
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that the best way to relieve suffering is to get rid of the sufferer.
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Yeah, and there was this piece in the Daily Mail, since you bring that up,
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one doctor says it's the most rewarding work we've ever done.
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This is a physician, well, two physicians in the article, Ellen Wiebe and Stephanie Green,
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of Dying with Dignity Canada, who say they have euthanized more than 700 people between them.
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So to them, it's almost like this tally, the more people they've been able to do this to,
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Well, I think that's certainly how they square it with their conscience, that that is what they're doing.
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The question is, how careful have they been in really assessing people?
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You saw in that story, there was a story of one of Ellen Wiebe's patients,
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who she assessed virtually, had the man fly out to her place of work in BC,
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And so I would think it's pretty challenging for a physician to do a proper assessment
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on something that is as serious as this in a virtual manner.
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I guess the question that I would ask then is, where is it going from here?
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Because if we're already, you know, barreling down the slippery slope,
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as we were talking about earlier, what's the next frontier?
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Because I think we've seen that it's very easy to get into a point where you're playing catch-up here.
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And in the case of the mental health exemption, we're looking at that deadline,
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which unless they do go forward with the changes, is going to be in March.
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What's the next thing that people need to be worried about or watch out for?
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Well, I think it's pretty clear that the two other issues that are on the table are advanced directives.
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So individuals, particularly aimed towards those with dementia, can pre-choose their death date,
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and then it's pretty hard for them to step away from it.
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And then also euthanizing infants and children.
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I think that's the other area that's going to expand.
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And we've already seen the College of Quebec, for example, the College of Physicians of Quebec,
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We have seen the sick kids has put out a policy for how they would treat assisted dying with minors
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and how they would choose that and how they would work through that.
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So I think that is something that is already being considered within the medical community
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or within particular parts of the medical community.
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Now, this goes beyond conscience rights, does it not?
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I mean, physicians are not being forced to do this, as I understand, correct?
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So that's a question of conscience rights there.
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I think nurses as well are being forced to participate when they don't want to.
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I think it's becoming pretty, it's, the problem is, is that because the focus is so much on
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if a patient says they want it, you must facilitate it, there's no opportunity to go into the why.
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And most individuals who say, oh, I want to die, what they really want is they want their situation to change.
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And so if a physician can't speak to them and find out what's at the root of this and see if they can fix it,
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then there's no opportunity for the system or even the doctors involved or the nurses to have a conversation
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with the patient in a way that tries to resolve their issues rather than just putting them on the euthanasia train
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and reaching out to the MAID team and having euthanasia provided pretty quickly.
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I know when medicinal marijuana was becoming a bit more of a thing and we didn't have legalized cannabis in Canada,
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there was this little whisper campaign that was sort of going on where people that wanted a prescription knew where to go.
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And there were certain doctors that were a little bit more liberal with writing these prescriptions than others
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and in many cases more liberal than the legislation.
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And the sense that I've gotten anecdotally is that the same thing has been true in assisted dying,
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is that you have the regulations and the standards that are supposed to be there,
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but there are certain places that people go that might be a bit more lax with it.
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And even between provinces, I mean, I've understood and I've known personally people that have been eligible in British Columbia
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that never would have been eligible in another province.
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Yeah, no, it's certainly, I mean, even though it is a federal system or a framework,
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there are different or varying interpretations of it in different areas of the country,
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but certainly it comes down to what one doctor believes is acceptable.
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And you'll even see in the reports of Ellen Weave, and she has said, like,
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if I believe that it's right, then I will do it.
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And so I think what you're seeing is doctor shopping happening.
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And even in the training that they do in CAM app, so the Canadian Association of Maid Professionals,
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that they have talked about, if you get a no, you can keep looking.
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So there's no kind of suggestion that if doctors say that you are not eligible,
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You can keep doctor shopping, you can keep looking for a doctor who's going to agree with your assessment.
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We wouldn't accept that in medicine with someone that wanted a prescription for opioids, would we?
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Even with other procedures, if a doctor determines that you're not eligible or it's not appropriate treatment,
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I mean, you can ask for a second opinion in some cases, but you don't get third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth opinions.
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It's baffling to me that so many people have been basically cowed into silence on some of these things.
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And again, we talked about this at the beginning.
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There's a little bit of a turning point here in that more people are paying attention to this now than were before.
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Let me ask about the middle ground, if you will, because obviously your group represents doctors who are tremendously passionate about life issues,
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And I think, though, there are other doctors that would probably not identify as pro-life.
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They wouldn't identify as conservative, but they are very uncomfortable with where this is going.
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And I'm curious how large or small a group that is, in your view.
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I would think that it's the majority of doctors who are concerned that it's gone too far.
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I think also, honestly, many physicians were not paying attention to this.
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Many Canadians were not paying attention to this.
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Bill C-7 kind of slipped under the radar during COVID,
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and all of a sudden doctors are finding that their patients can request euthanasia even if they have something, a treatable symptom.
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I mean, you saw that whole story that blew up around the young man who had diabetes
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and was then, he was able to get an assisted death date,
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and his mother found out and took it to the media and made a big to-do about it.
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And since then, if you listen to other stories and followed him,
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since then he went on a date, got a girlfriend, his life changed.
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And so you really start to question whether people who are in these situations,
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what we really need to do is change their circumstances,
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and then assisted death is not on the table for them.
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So just as a matter of logistics here, I know that we have this deadline that's supposed to kick in in March.
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It just means it will go into effect March 17th.
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The House does not sit now until the end of January.
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So I'd be surprised if they could bring forward legislation fast enough
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and move it through the process before the sunset clause happens.
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But, you know, they have to, I think it would have to move through the House and the Senate
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And that aspect of the law was put into place by the Senate.
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They wanted to allow euthanasia for individuals whose sole condition was mental illness.
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So I'd be surprised if there was any change to the law.
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And again, the whole basis of this was just trust us to figure it out,
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which I didn't particularly trust them two years ago when they made that comment.
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And I really don't now that we're heading towards it.
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And I think that the challenge here is that there are so many situations where,
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and this is what comes up whenever abortion is raised as an issue, for example,
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as most people listening to this show will probably know,
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And abortion is legal in Canada up until seconds before delivery.
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well, you know, we just trust doctors to make the right call.
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We trust doctors to not be irresponsible with this.
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But the problem is that, as we've talked about,
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there's a wild variation in what doctors in this country view as being acceptable.
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And there's also, I would say, particularly with euthanasia, there's no oversight.
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So there's no group or body that goes through and makes sure things were done properly.
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And so it's very problematic because the euthanasia providers are saying,
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well, there's never been any, nothing has ever gone wrong, right?
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There's been no reported cases of anything that's ever gone amiss.
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And secondly, you don't have the reporting mechanisms to ensure that that's the case.
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And so I think it's naive to suggest that the body that's providing euthanasia
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should be the one that's doing the oversight and the reporting on it.
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And the government is certainly funding the group that does euthanasia.
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So I think it's a concern when the government's putting a lot of resources
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into providing assisted suicide, but not a similar amount of resources into palliative care
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or into social supports or into other things that help people live well.
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Nicole Scheidel is the Executive Director of Canadian Physicians for Life.
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Just on a, well, I don't want to say an unrelated note,
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but on a slightly sidestepping note here, this is not a religious issue.
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And I know when a lot of people hear life and pro-life,
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And certainly there are a lot of religious people in the pro-life movement,
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And there are a lot of people that have a very scientific approach to these problems.
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So our members are focused on practicing medicine in the Hippocratic tradition.
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And I would say one of the most compelling arguments that I've heard against euthanasia
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was given by one of the doctors at our conference.
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And he said, if you can show me how euthanasia helps my patients,
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But because it doesn't make their lives better, it doesn't heal them.
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It doesn't, it's not part of the healing profession.
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I'm really not prepared to do it at this point.
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Nicole, thank you so much for your work on this.
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But like I said, I would love to find some optimism in this,
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Well, I think that sometimes when it becomes so bad,
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it wakes people up and then they have to say, like, we need to change.
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And if you compare us to California, which is similar in size,
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Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
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