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OTTAWA, Ontario, 7 August, 12 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A pro-euthanasia group has teamed up with an atheist group to present what they call an “expert panel” to inform Canadians about recent legal developments in the country regarding medically assisted suicide.

Meanwhile, the country’s top advocate for the right-to-life of the elderly has slammed the expert panel event, calling it “one-sided and misleading”.

“Canada does not need anybody promoting laws that allow one person to kill another person, whether they are terminally ill or not,” said Alex Schadenberg, director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, to LifeSiteNews.

The pro-euthanasia group “Dying with Dignity,” and atheist group “Centre for Inquiry – Ottawa,” will host the event titled “Medically Assisted Suicide Coming to Canada – How, Why, When?” on September 7 in Ottawa, Ontario.

Schadenberg noted that professor Udo Schuklenk, one of the members of the panel for the upcoming event, was also the chair for the “one-sided pro-euthanasia expert panel” for the Royal Society of Canada’s “End-of-Life Decision Making” report, which was produced last November. Schuklenk, a Queen’s Philosophy professor, is well known as a pro-euthanasia philosopher.

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“Does Schuklenk like to participate in one-sided panels?” said Schadenberg.

The expert panel event comes at a time when euthanasia is in the country’s spotlight. Last month, Justice Minister Hon Rob Nicholson appealed the decision by Justice Lynn Smith in the Carter case that would have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada.

Schadenberg pointed out that the country’s acceptance of euthanasia would “fundamentally alter the social structure of existing human relationships”.

“Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives everyone the ‘right to life, liberty and security of the person’. If euthanasia were legalized, it would mean that not all people would be equal before the law, but that some people would have the power to end the life of other people in certain circumstances. Our Charter exists to give the weak and the vulnerable the same rights as those who are strong and healthy. Legalizing euthanasia is simply contrary to the entire purpose of the Charter.”

Schadenberg called people “naive” who think that laws that would be established to govern the circumstances in which doctors administer euthanasia would always be followed.

“Anytime you give someone a certain power, there is also the propensity, because of the human condition, for the abuse of that power. If doctors are given the power to kill their patients, you can be sure that there will arise abuses of that power.”