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QUEBEC CITY, February 20, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Their rallying cry is urgent and grave: “Euthanasia is at our doors. It's time to ring the alarm!”

The Quebec Life Coalition (CQV) is calling upon all citizens who value human life to demonstrate against the province’s upcoming legislation that would bring in euthanasia through the back door.

Pundits suspect that the Quebec government will legislate by the end of June to allow euthanasia. The law, to be based on Quebec’s Select Committee “Dying With Dignity Report” that dresses up euthanasia as “medical aid in dying,” will apply to Quebecers over the age of 18, who make the request and who have a “serious, incurable disease,” or who are in an “advanced state of weakening capacities, with no chance of improvement,” or who have “constant and unbearable physical or psychological suffering that cannot be eased under conditions he or she deems tolerable.”

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A demonstration is planned for March 9 in front of the legislature in Quebec City.

“We know that we can't stop the inevitable decline of the Western culture, but those of us who are involved in this protest want to have a clear conscience. We want to be able to say that we didn't stand by idly while the State encourages suicide and legalizes murder,” wrote Daniel Arseneault, a member of CQV, in an e-mail to LifeSiteNews.com.

Arseneault said that many people in Quebec think that euthanasia, an act to deliberately cause someone’s death, is a settled matter since opponents to the proposed legislation have not been able to make their voices heard in the media.

“There is a false notion that there exists a consensus on euthanasia in Quebec, especially following the sham ‘Commission on Dying with Dignity,’ which was nothing more than a public relations endeavor to convince Quebecers that everyone is in favour of euthanasia,” he said.

Arseneault said that a “substantial minority” of Quebecers — between 21 percent and 45 percent — are in fact opposed to euthanasia but that the “political and intellectual establishment would have us think otherwise in order to stifle debate on this issue.”

Georges Buscemi, president of the Quebec Life Coalition, pointed out that legalizing murder under the name of euthanasia is a slippery slope that can only lead to abuse.

“The PQ government is trying to reassure us that the new law will have ‘safeguards’ or ‘strict guidelines’ to ensure that no abuse takes place. But who do they take us for? Don't people ever learn from history?”

Buscemi pointed out that abortion was only decriminalized in 1969 with the promise of strict safeguards and guidelines that would be put in place and enforced.

“To abort [at that time], one needed the approval of a committee of three doctors. It had to be for ‘good medical reasons’. Some, no doubt, predicted that there would be at most a few hundred yearly abortions in Quebec,” he said. “But that number grew and grew until 1988, when, with the Supreme Court Morgentaler decision, all those beautiful ‘guidelines’ and ‘safeguards’ collapsed, leaving a legal vacuum.”

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“Today we're dealing with 30,000 abortions per year in Quebec [and] 100,000 in Canada,” he said. “We have abortion on demand, for any reason, [up] until the [time of] birth. That's what happened in the span of 40 years.”

“I do not see how euthanasia will be different: in a few years, what has happened with abortion will happen for euthanasia — euthanasia on demand for any or no reason — unless we do something about it now,” he said.

Karl Gunning, former head of the Dutch Doctors’ Union, stated in a 1994 speech that “Once you start looking at killing as a means to solve problems, then you’ll find more and more problems where killing can be the solution.”

Arseneault pointed out that if murder became law, the government would be sure to take advantage of the situation.

“There is also the ever-present risk of abuse on the part of the State who is in conflict of interest, since costs of caring for the mentally and physically ill are exploding,” he said.

The Quebec Life Coalition is also sounding the alarm that the government of Quebec is usurping a federal prerogative, since Canadian criminal law prohibits euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition told LifeSiteNews.com in a recent interview that the Committee’s proposal for getting around current Federal law was to redefine euthanasia as a “medical treatment.” Euthanasia as a “medical treatment” would then fall under the jurisdiction of provincial health care laws.

“Because they can’t change the criminal law, they’re going to call euthanasia a ‘medical treatment’ and say it’s legal because it’s a ‘treatment.’ They’re changing the meaning of words to get a way with homicide,” he said.

The Quebec Life Coalition has slammed the approach as “undemocratic and unconstitutional.”

Top American bioethicist Wesley J. Smith has criticized Quebec’s push to legalize euthanasia, saying it will turn doctors into killers and establish broad “categories of the killable” that will apply to practically anyone seeking death for any reason.

Smith pointed out that the phrase “aid in dying” in the proposed legislation is simply a euphemism for “active killing by doctors.” He suggested that if the Committee’s recommendations are followed, then “every Quebec physician will be conscripted to participate in homicide as a condition of practicing medicine.”

The Quebec Life Coalition is asking people of faith to pray that “God will heal the spiritual blindness of too many of our fellow citizens which leads them to believe that killing is an act of compassion and suicide a worthy and beneficial gesture.”

The organization is also asking people to sign the Total Refusal of Euthanasia Declaration crafted by an alliance of Quebec physicians who oppose legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

“With your support, we will be able to tell the truth about the dangers of euthanasia in Quebec,” states the Quebec Life Coalition.

The protest against legalizing euthanasia in Quebec will take place on March 9, 2013, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. in front of the legislature in Quebec City. Details can be found at CQV’s website.