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February 15, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A Canadian doctor suddenly found herself a patient on the ward of a rehabilitation unit after an accident left her paralyzed from the waist down this past October. Now, she said she is worried about the latest expansions to Canada’s legalized euthanasia program and how they will affect people, in particular those with disabilities.
Corrina Iampen, a GP from Kelowna, British Columbia, told LifeSiteNews that just weeks after her paralyzing accident last fall, a doctor in hospital asked her if she would like a “Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order” put on her medical chart. Iampen said she did not want extra medical measures taken to keep her alive but at the time, those treatments were necessary anyway. She said yes to the “DNR.” The treating doctor then said, “Well, do you want me to just call MAiD?”
MAiD — or Medical Assistance in Dying — is the Canadian euphemism for legal doctor-assisted suicide by injection. Bill C-7, which would expand the accepted criteria for euthanasia to people who are not actually dying but diagnosed with a non-life threatening condition including permanent disability, has already passed first reading in the House. Amendments to allow for euthanasia of people with mental illness and for “advance directives” — for people to be euthanized should they become incompetent in the future, as in Alzheimer’s dementia — passed in the Senate this week.
Although she is not opposed to MAiD in concept, Iampen is worried about how it will be done in practice. “The presentation has to be very delicate, because it doesn’t just impact you as a person, but it also impacts so many people around you,” the 55-year-old doctor said.
Iampen said the doctor who questioned if she wanted MAiD when she was in rehab was generally “very nice,” but “at the time, I was just really surprised by it. I thought it was very aloof.”
The “timing was really poor,” she added, and “inappropriate in the sense that in reality, there are times that you are really struggling and it is something that crosses your mind, the thought — you’d rather have died in the accident — of course it does.”
Recovery has been “very difficult at times,” Iampen said. “You’re not just in shock, some people go through quite a lot of neuropathic pain. I’m one of them. It’s very difficult to describe but its’ there. There’s the loss of mobility and independence and the loss of bladder and bowel control and a whole re-identification process that you’re going through.”
For young people, questions about MAiD at such a vulnerable time might be overwhelmingly tempting, Iampen said, but “even people that are my age that don’t have good supports around them would find it very difficult.”
As a doctor-turned-patient, Iampen began to see how disabled people are treated disrespectfully in the health system. As she was wheeling herself down the halls at the GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre, she saw nursing staff undressing disabled women without closing the door to give them privacy, for example. “You’re relying on staff to help you adjust to this new life” and “some were really amazing,” she said, but others could make her feel “like a burden.”
Iampen said she asked to speak to the director of the rehabilitation clinic before she left, to offer her insights on “how to help others” but the director never came to see her.
The lack of interest in improving quality of life for people before offering MAiD has been a recurring theme under Canada’s program of doctor-assisted killing. In 2017, Roger Foley, then 42 years old and suffering from an incurable neurological condition secretly recorded staff at the London, Ontario, hospital he was housed at for more than two years repeatedly offering him MAiD services while Foley’s requests for self-directed care were denied.
In 2019, doctors were criticized for euthanizing a physically healthy but depressed 61-year-old British Columbia man. His family members said he was not of sound mind and begged him not to go through with the procedure.
Another Canadian doctor, Naheed Dosani, a University of Toronto-affiliated palliative care specialist who cares for homeless people from a mobile unit, testified before the senate on February 1, saying that MAiD is far easier to access than actual help to improve people’s lives. “I work in the trenches, on the frontlines of the homelessness crisis, the opioid overdose death crisis and now the Covid-19 pandemic crisis,” Dosani said. “I work in a world where I can successfully arrange for MAiD in two weeks in an organized and efficient fashion, but also a world where it takes years to get the people I care for into housing, months to get people income support and weeks to get them mental health and harm reduction support, if we’re lucky.”
“I find this morally distressing,” he added. “I want to be clear: I’ve seen people who’ve pursued MAiD because they’ve experienced marginalization.”
PETITION UPDATE (2/25/2021) -
Not only has the federal Senate in Canada not come to the aid of vulnerable people threatened by the passage of Euthanasia Bill C-7, they have actually voted to make matters worse by EXPANDING provision of euthanasia beyond what C-7 had originally intended.
The bill will now go back to Parliament, where the Senate's amendments can be accepted or rejected.
Please READ LifeSiteNews' analysis of the Trudeau Liberals' latest salvo in their all-out push to expand euthanasia in Canada: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/canada-senate-passes-euthanasia-bill-expanding-categories-of-the-killable
Then, please SIGN and SHARE this petition. Thank you.
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PETITION UPDATE (12/9/2020)
On December 3, 2020, the Concurrence at report stage of Bill C-7 passed with 213 yeas and 103 nays, with a total of 316 votes.
Bill C-7 would expand already existing provisions for assisted suicide. It would "repeal the provision that requires a person’s natural death be reasonably foreseeable."
The Bill is currently in its Third Reading in the House of Commons and will move on to the Senate if it passes.
We are obliged to help people who are suffering, especially the vulnerable, and that’s why we must oppose Bill C-7.
Please SIGN and SHARE this urgent petition. Then, please contact your MP and tell them to vote NO on Bill C-7. You can find your MP and their contact information HERE.
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We are obliged to help people who are suffering, not kill them.
But, that's exactly what the existing euthanasia law - the so-called "medical assistance in dying (MAiD)" provision - allows.
And, right now, the Trudeau Liberals are pushing for making death even more accessible to our most vulnerable citizens by tabling Bill C-7 in Parliament.
Please SIGN this petition and call for Canada's Members of Parliament to REJECT more euthanasia in Bill C-7, and, instead, provide for more homecare, palliative care, and mental health support.
Bill C-7 would expand existing provisions for assisted-suicide by removing the requirement that a person's natural death be reasonably foreseeable to qualify for MAiD.
Simply put: under C-7, people who are not terminally ill can be killed by MAiD!
This is outrageous, as it puts people with disabilities, the elderly, the young, and those who cannot consent (if they had already agreed to MAiD) at serious risk.
Please CLICK HERE to learn more about Bill C-7 and how it would put those vulnerable people more at risk, and allow for more death and more killing.
Then, please SIGN and SHARE this urgent petition.
Our elected Members of Parliament should be discussing how to help our disabled, elderly and young people with greater provision for homecare, palliative care, and mental health support, rather than encouraging our most vulnerable to kill themselves with our government's help and endorsement.
Nothing could be more foul and malicious.
And, while it's true that Trudeau's Minister of Justice is sponsoring this atrocious Bill, 40 Conservative Party politicians supported him in the vote on the Bill's Second Reading in late October.
We list these 40 Conservative MPs below, so that, after signing this petition, you can politely and respectfully contact them to let them know you want them to REJECT the expansion of MAiD (which, again, will mean more death and more killing), and to EMBRACE life-affirming provisions, like more funding for homecare, palliative care, and mental health support for our most vulnerable citizens.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'People with disabilities oppose Canada’s proposed expansion of euthanasia law' - https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/people-with-disabilities-oppose-canadas-proposed-expansion-of-euthanasia-law
Canada's House of Parliament Info on Bill C-7 - https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=en&Mode=1&billId=10875380&View=5
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto's 'Help the Living' initiative - https://www.helptheliving.ca/
**Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
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List of 40 Conservatives who voted FOR C-7 (Expansion of Euthanasia) on the Bill's Second Reading:
SCOTT AITCHISON (Parry Sound—Muskoka) - Telephone: 613-944-7740; Email: [email protected]
DAN ALBAS (Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola) - Telephone: 613-995-1702; Email: [email protected]
LEONA ALLESLEV (Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill) - Telephone: 613-992-0700; Email: [email protected]
MEL ARNOLD (North Okanagan—Shuswap) - Telephone: 613-995-9095; Email: [email protected]
TONY BALDINELLI (Niagara Falls) - Telephone: 613-995-1547; Email: [email protected]
JOHN BARLOW (Foothills) - Telephone: 613-995-8471; Email: [email protected]
LUC BERTHOLD (Mégantic—L'Érable) - Telephone: 613-995-1377; Email: [email protected]
SCOT DAVIDSON (York—Simcoe) - Telephone: 613-996-7752; Email: [email protected]
GÉRARD DELTELL (Louis-Saint-Laurent) - Telephone: 613-996-4151; Email: [email protected]
CHRIS D'ENTREMONT (West Nova) - Telephone: 613-995-5711; Email: [email protected]
TODD DOHERTY (Cariboo—Prince George) - Telephone: 613-995-6704; Email: [email protected]
TERRY DOWDALL (Simcoe—Grey) - Telephone: 613-992-4224; Email: [email protected]
ERIC DUNCAN (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry) - Telephone: 613-992-2521; Email: [email protected]
KERRY-LYNNE D. FINDLAY (South Surrey—White Rock) - Telephone: 613-947-4497; Email: [email protected]
DIANE FINLEY (Haldimand—Norfolk) - Telephone: 613-996-4974; Email: [email protected]
BERNARD GÉNÉREUX (Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup) - Telephone: 613-995-0265; Email: [email protected]
JOËL GODIN (Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier) - Telephone: 613-992-2798; Email: [email protected]
JACQUES GOURDE (Lévis—Lotbinière) - Telephone: 613-992-2639; Email: [email protected]
TRACY GRAY (Kelowna—Lake Country) - Telephone: 613-992-7006; Email: [email protected]
PAT KELLY (Calgary Rocky Ridge) - Telephone: 613-992-0826; Email: [email protected]
PETER KENT (Thornhill) - Telephone: 613-992-0253; Email: [email protected]
RON LIEPERT (Calgary Signal Hill) - Telephone: 613-992-3066; Email: [email protected]
LARRY MAGUIRE (Brandon—Souris) - Telephone: 613-995-9372; Email: [email protected]
RICHARD MARTEL (Chicoutimi—Le Fjord) - Telephone: 613-992-7207; Email: [email protected]
DAN MAZIER (Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa) - Telephone: 613-992-3176; Email: [email protected]
GREG MCLEAN (Calgary Centre) - Telephone: 613-995-1561; Email: [email protected]
CATHY MCLEOD (Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo) - Telephone: 613-995-6931; Email: [email protected]
ERIC MELILLO (Kenora) - Telephone: 613-996-1161; Email: [email protected]
MARTY MORANTZ (Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley) - Telephone: 613-995-5609; Email: [email protected]
ROB MORRISON (Kootenay—Columbia) - Telephone: 613-995-7246; Email: [email protected]
PIERRE PAUL-HUS (Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles) - Telephone: 613-995-8857; Email: [email protected]
ALAIN RAYES (Richmond—Arthabaska) - Telephone: 613-995-1554; Email: [email protected]
SCOTT REID (Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston) - Telephone: 613-947-2277; Email: [email protected]
MICHELLE REMPEL GARNER (Calgary Nose Hill) - Telephone: 613-992-4275; Email: [email protected]
ALEX RUFF (Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound) - Telephone: 613-996-5191; Email: [email protected]
BOB SAROYA (Markham—Unionville) - Telephone: 613-992-1178; Email: Bo[email protected]
DOUG SHIPLEY (Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte) - Telephone: 613-992-0718; Email: [email protected]
BRUCE STANTON (Simcoe North) - Telephone: 613-992-6582; Email: [email protected]
KAREN VECCHIO (Elgin—Middlesex—London) - Telephone: 613-990-7769; Email: [email protected]
LEN WEBBER (Calgary Confederation) - Telephone: 613-996-2756; Email: [email protected]
Dosani described one patient, a man in his 50s he called “Bob” with multiple sclerosis and wounds whose pain was treated. He opted to die by doctor-assisted suicide because “his protracted disease and complications of it led to an alcohol use disorder which led to him lose housing which led to him losing his family and ultimately being alone.”
He also described having witnessed the opposite scenario, where helping a person’s circumstances changed their mind about wanting to die. “Mary” was a 30-something drug user on the streets who said she wanted MAiD but “after addressing her emotional and physical pain” and getting her housing, “she changed her mind. She didn’t want to die via MAID, she wanted to live because she had a better quality of life. “
“I worry that Bill C-7 will have a disproportionate impact on working class disabled people, people experiencing homelessness, poverty and marginalization, people who can’t support their basic needs like food and shelter and medication,” Dosani told the senate hearings on the bill.
“With 35,000 Canadians experiencing homelessness each night, I expect the same energy that’s been put into passing MAiD into our world and country, that we’ll put the same energy into housing … harm reduction, implementing basic income and pharmacare,” he said.
“If you are making it easier for people to get MAiD you have also an obligation to ensure that people are not forced into vulnerable situations where they feel they need to access MAiD to escape these vulnerable situations,” Dosani concluded.
The rapid expansions to Canada’s euthanasia criteria have critics comparing the country to Belgium and the Netherlands where euthanasia expanded rapidly to allow the killing of children, people with autism and chronic tinnitus, deafness and gender dysphoria related depression. In 2018, details of the Dutch case of a 74-year-old woman with dementia who was surreptitiously given a sedative in her coffee and held down by family members while a doctor gave her a lethal injection came to light.
Disability rights activists, including two separate United Nations watchdogs, have criticized Bill C-7, calling it discriminatory and “ableist” for offering government-assisted death to the disabled but not to people without disabilities. The term ableism refers to the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities.
“We’re concerned that it massively expands the range of people with disabilities, who potentially will be given access,” Gerard Quinn, the UN’s watchdog for people with disabilities, told the CBC.
“We’re concerned that there might be issues there … undermining their autonomy and their capacity to make the right decisions. I don’t mean the lack of legal capacity. What I mean is subtle pressure being brought to bear by, for example, lack of services or lack of community living options.”
Trudo Lemmens, a member of the Council of Canadian Academies Expert Panel on Medical Assistance in Dying, told LifeSiteNews that he is even more disturbed about how the new MAiD amendments will make suicide a “standard of care.”
“There is no other country in the world that has elevated MAiD as a first-line medical treatment on demand, as an unmodified Bill C-7 would do,” said Lemmens, a professor in health law and policy at the University of Toronto.
In a Policy Review paper he co-authored, Lemmens noted that ordinarily medicine reserves the most severe treatment options for last. A doctor does not usually propose surgery for arthritis without first trying lifestyle modifications and medications. Removed from the “end-of-life” context and within a Supreme Court reading of having the right to refuse any treatments, MAiD becomes a standard-of-care “treatment” option that physicians will have an obligation to provide at the outset and patients will have the right to take.
Attempts to safeguard disabled people from pressure to undergo MAiD were soundly defeated. Senators voted 66-18 (with one abstention) against an amendment, proposed by Conservative Senate leader Don Plett, which would have made it a crime for medical staff to raise the issue of assisted dying with a patient unless the patient requested information about MAiD first.
Lemmens said he is counting on the House to withdraw the Senate amendments which were passed in under two weeks on emotional arguments rather than consideration of the complex issues that will arise. Sen. Pamela Wallin, a member of the Canadian Senators Group who proposed the amendment, said that she has a “history of dementia in my family” and that the law currently traps Canadians in “a perverse diagnosis lottery” so that those diagnosed with incurable cancer can receive a lethal injection, but people with dementia cannot, because they have lost competence.
“I find the superficiality of the discussion and the analysis of some of the senators who approved this … amazing,” Lemmens said. “I hope that saner minds will prevail in the House and people will reject these amendments. If they don’t, I would find it quite disturbing because it makes a mockery of the whole parliamentary process and the serious discussion that preceded this.”
“This is not a bill we should be offering during a pandemic when so many people are suffering from loneliness and economic problems,” Lemmens added.
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is calling on Canadians to contact their MPs to and has launched a petition to reject Bill C-7 which has garnered more than 52,000 signatures to date.