Updated with information and photo from the North Bay protest.
April 28, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — Despite short notice, people turned up outside MP offices in some 30 federal ridings across the country Wednesday to protest legalized euthanasia, says organizer Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.
“We had 50 people in Peterborough, there were 47 in Orleans, there were quite a few places that had 30, and 25,” he said. “All in all it was very successful.”
The protesters in North Bay, Ontario, report their event drew 73 people.
But people must keep up the pressure, he said.
“Members of Parliament across Canada need to hear from us, because we can guarantee you that the pro-euthanasia people have been meeting with their Members of Parliament,” he told LifeSiteNews.
“So if we don’t do it, don’t be surprised how they vote.”
The short lead-time in calling the April 27 nationwide rallies was unavoidable because the EPC had to wait until the Liberals introduced their euthanasia bill, which they did April 14, Schadenberg explained.
Since then, “this was the very first week where the Members of Parliament are supposed to be in their ridings, so that gave us an opportunity to speak to them.”
Indeed, “several of these protests resulted in the Member of Parliament speaking to them, and other protests resulted in the Member of Parliament agreeing to speak to them in the near future.”
And that’s essential, Schadenberg stressed.
As he outlines in a seven-point analysis (below), Bill C-14 is unacceptable, and people must tell MPs why they oppose the bill and legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide as soon as possible.
The Liberals are rushing to pass legislation by June 6, when the Supreme Court’s February 2015 Carter decision striking down the law against assisted suicide and euthanasia comes into effect.
Adrian Rhodes of the EPC told LifeSiteNews that he protested along with four others outside the office of Liberal MP Peter Fragiskatos and had “cordial discussion” with the rookie MP for London North, and plans to speak with him again.
Legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide is “too dangerous. There’s no way we should be doing this,” said Rhodes.
He said that people called EPC from “coast to coast” about the April 27 rallies. “I had people phoning from Nova Scotia, from Ontario, from the west coast, saying, ‘Hey, look we want the materials, we’re going to go do it.’”
Jakki Jeffs, executive director for Alliance for Life Ontario, said her group didn’t meet Lloyd Longfield this time, but she had discussed euthanasia with the first-time Liberal MP for Guelph at a similar protest March 31.
“As honest and concerned as he was and is, it was like going around in circles,” Jeffs told LifeSiteNews in an email. “I think he is like most Canadians — he believes the Government has a duty to bring in a new bill, but wrestles with how you serve individual autonomy and protect the vulnerable.”
Longfield told her that “the government had to do something and I told him to invoke the notwithstanding clause — that was something,” Jeffs said.
“Government should not sanction killing human beings.”
She said that Longfield also seems to see the issue as “actually about end-of-life care or about dying — not killing by assisting with suicide or euthanasia of anyone who fits the bill (no pun intended).”
“I must say that I was never more convinced that there is a spiritual blindness that is causing good people to just not see the horror,” she said.
John Himanen told LifeSiteNews that because of the short notice, he could muster only eight people to protest outside the Stouffville office of Liberal Health Minister Jane Philpott.
“But it was good nevertheless. Her office is right there on Main Street…so we had good visibility,” he said.
And EPC is organizing a June 1 anti-euthanasia protest on Parliament Hill, said Schadenberg.
Alliance for Life Ontario and Campaign Life Coalition have called for a day of prayer and fasting May 2.
For more information on Bill C-14 or the June 1 rally, go here.
Find contact information for Members of Parliament here.
Alex Schadenberg’s analysis of Bill C-14:
1. We oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide for many reasons, but the main reason is legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide gives legal power to another person to cause your death. No one should ever have the right in law to cause your death. Death is irrevocable.
The term – Medical Assistance in Dying encompasses euthanasia and assisted suicide, therefore it is correct to use the terms euthanasia and assisted suicide. We refer to acts of euthanasia and assisted suicide based on what it actually is. Euthanasia is an act of homicide, where one person causes the death of another person. Euthanasia is usually done by giving a person a lethal injection. Assisted Suicide is assisting another person’s suicide and it is usually done by giving that person a lethal dose that the person technically takes themselves.
2. Bill C-14 allows nurse practitioners to approve of euthanasia or assisted suicide. All other jurisdictions limit approvals to doctors.
3. Bill C-14 does not provide effective oversight of the law. This issue concerns life and death, this bill allows a medical or nurse practitioner who approves the death, to all be the person who carries-out the death, to also be the person who reports the death. This is a self-reporting system that protects persons who do the act. People do not self-report abuse of the law. There needs to be third-party, preferably the court to provide effective oversight of the law.
4. Bill C-14 provides legal immunity to: any person who does anything for the purpose of aiding a medical practitioner or nurse practitioner to provide a person with medical assistance in dying. The bill provides a perfect cover for acts of murder.
5. Bill C-14 creates a false illusion of safeguards. For instance, the bill requires a medical or nurse practitioner to: be of the opinion that the person meets all of the criteria. The medical and nurse practitioner will always claim that they were “of the opinion” that the person met all of the criteria.
There are many more illusions of safeguards in the bill such as: the bill requires a medical or nurse practitioner to: be satisfied that the request was signed and dated by the person—or by another person under subsection (4). To be satisfied does not protect anyone.
6. The bill does not require the person to be terminally ill. The bill says: their natural death has become reasonably foreseeable, taking into account all of their medical circumstances, without a prognosis necessarily having been made as to the specific length of time that they have remaining. This is meaningless double speak. How would it be determined that death has become reasonably foreseeable?
7. The bill provides no conscience protection for healthcare professionals. Further to that, the bill requires medical or nurse practitioners to provide the “designated recipient” or the Minister of Health with every request for euthanasia or assisted suicide.
We are fully aware that the Supreme Court struck down Canada's assisted suicide law, but Bill C-14 does not provide effective oversight of the law, the bill enables anyone to directly participate in the act, the bill provides an illusion of safeguards and the bill does not provide conscience protection for medical professionals. The details in this bill are dangerous for Canadians in their time of need.