The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports that the government of Quebec will introduce legislation to legalize physician assisted suicide in the province between 7 and 14 June, 2013. The draft bill is expected to assert that physician assisted suicide is a form of health care, and thus (under Canada’s constitutional division of powers) subject to provincial regulation, not the Criminal Code, a federal law that prohibits the procedures. Depending upon the wording of the bill, the proposed legislation could include euthanasia by physicians. Dr. Paul Saba of Physicians for Social Justice, a group that opposes the legislation, states that he will refuse to assist or refer any patient who asks for assisted suicide or euthanasia, regardless of the law or the policies of the Collège des médecins du Québec (Quebec College of Physicians), the state regulator of the practice of medicine. [CBC]
Category: Euthanasia
Appeal hearing on legalization of physician assisted suicide
An appeal against the judgement of the BC Supreme Court in Carter v. Canada (which found in favour of physician assisted suicide and the judge ordered Canada to change the law to permit it) is now underway.
The following link provides a live-feed from the BC Court of Appeal and links to the factums filed by the parties and intervenors.
Quebec Doctors Forced Into Homicide?
Human Exceptionalism
No one should be forced to kill or participate in killing. But if a recommendation of a Quebec euthanasia commission to legalize doctor-administered death are followed (discussed in more detail here) every Quebec physician will be conscripted to participate in homicide as a condition of practicing medicine. Read more . . .
Physicians’ Alliance for Total Refusal of Euthanasia
Although euthansia and assisted suicide are criminal offences in Canada, and criminal law is under the jurisdiction of the federal government, the government of Quebec has announced that it will legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia provided by health care workers. [National Post] The commission that recommended this step also recommended that objecting physicians be forced to facilitate the procedures by referral.
It appears that the provincial government will claim that assisted suicide and euthanasia are forms of medical treatment. Since health care is under provincial and not federal jurisdiction, the province will likely argue that the prohibition of these services within the context of health care trespasses on provincial jurisdiction. This was one of the claims of the BC Civil Liberties Association in Carter v. Canada, which it won.
The third legal argument advanced by the BC Civil Liberties Association in Carter was that “treatment and management of the physical and emotional suffering of a grievously and irremediably ill patient” are matters that fall within the “exclusive jurisdiction” of the provinicial government, which is constitutionally mandated to manage health care. Since (according to the plaintiff physician) physician-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia are “important component[s] of the provision of health care to grievously and irremediably ill patients,”the lawsuit asked that sections of the Criminal Code (a federal statute) that prevent the provision of this “health care” should be struck down as an unconstitutional interference in provincial jurisdiction, “to the extent that [they] prohibit physician-assisted dying.” See Legalizing therapeutic homicide and assisted suicide:A tour of Carter v. Canada
However, the claim was not adjudicated in Carter because it was not actually argued during the trial.
The province also has the constitutional authority to enforce and administer criminal law, so that it could, in theory, instruct prosecutors not to pursue charges against health care workers who provide the procedures in accordance with government guidelines. It could do this pending the outcome of litigation, and even if the criminal prohibition stands. This is the approach taken in England with respect to assisted suicide, though the English guidelines indicate that health care workers must not be involved.
Should the provincial government refuse to prosecute health care workers who provide the services, it would be possible for the federal government to order the federal police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to investigate allegations, and to appoint and pay lawyers to act as prosecutors. However, this would be especially contentious in Quebec, since the current government is ideologically committed to the separation of Quebec from Canada and the establishment of the province as an independent nation state. Nationalist elements in Quebec would see that kind of federal intervention as not only a constitutional violation of provincial jurisdiction, but as violation of sovereignty.
Thus, divisions among health care workers on this issue may involve complexities and nuances not encountered elsewhere, and those who resolutely refuse to provide or facilitate assisted suicide and euthanasia may find their circumstances unusually challenging. Nonetheless, prominent Quebec physicians have formed The Physicians’ Alliance for Total Refusal of Euthanasia. The Alliance is directly challenging the medical regulatory authority:
The Quebec College of Physicians does not have the legal or the moral authority to change one of the basic pillars of medicine, or to amend the code of medical ethics, without first conducting an extensive study and consultation with members of the profession. The mere passing of a resolution by the board of directors does not make physician-inflicted death an acceptable form of care.
Deaf twins killed by Belgian physicians
45 year old identical twin brothers were killed by lethal injection at Brussels University hospital, in Jette, Belgium, by physicians acting under the country’s euthanasia law. The twins, who were deaf, had learned that they were going blind, and decided to be killed rather than never see each other again. The Belgian government has prpoosed an amendment to further expand grounds for euthanasia. [Daily Mail]