Bishops ready to fight assisted suicide

By DEBORAH GYAPONG
Canadian Catholic News
Ottawa

A debate on assisted suicide looms over Parliament Hill, and Canada's Catholic bishops have already registered their opposition to any changes in the law.

During the final day of Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops' (CCCB) plenary in Cornwall, Ontario Sept. 19-23, they adopted a unanimous resolution calling on the government and all MPs to oppose Bill C-407, a private members' bill introduced earlier this year by Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde.

The CCCB statement called on Canadians, including elected representatives, to promote palliative care for those seriously or teminally ill as well as the handicapped.

"Our legal system should be inspired by a culture of life in which each person feels responsible for the well being of others until their natural death," it said.

After MPs returned to Ottawa Sept. 26 after a summer break, Lalonde told CCN that she expects the House of Commons to begin second reading debate on her bill in early November.

"After the vote, I hope that the members will send it to a committee," she said. "I cannot be sure at this point. I hope so. I think so."

She was unable to say when the vote would take place.

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said he will wait until the bill is introduced before deciding what position to take. However, almost a year ago Cotler said he thought the debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide should be reopened.

"I regard this as a very complex issue from a legal, a medical, a scientific, a religious indeed philosophic point of view," he said Sept. 26. "This is something that deserves to be fully addressed in Parliament and if the bill serves that purpose for that parliamentary debate then we'll have the debate on that issue."

Conservative MP Jason Kenney said private members' bills are usually handled as free votes, but he expects Conservative Justice Critic Vic Toews to recommend against changing the law.

"I don't think there is any public desire to open the floodgates to Dutch-style assisted murder, which is what it is, legalizing the killing of human beings," Kenney told CCN Sept. 26. "That's a taboo that I don't think a liberal democracy that respects the right to life should cross."

Netherlands concern

Kenney is not the only one who has raised concerns about the Netherlands in relation to Lalonde's bill.

"The situation (in the Netherlands) has now deteriorated to the point where they euthanize numerous babies born with spina bifida," Dr. Will Johnston, co-chair of the Euthanasia Coalition of B.C., recently told Today's Family News, (TFN) an outreach of Focus on the Family Canada.

"It's (Bill C-407) is "so generally worded as to be a virtual licence to kill in almost any circumstance and offers no reassurance at all to people who are looking for safeguards," Johnston told TFN.

In a Sept. 26 news release, the Catholic Civil Rights League urged its members to voice their concerns to political leaders about assisted suicide.

"We want this dangerous bill stopped," said CCRL President Phil Horgan.

"In looking back over the legislative initiatives, generally, we have reason to be fearful of what this Parliament will do in response to euthanasia," Horgan said in a telephone interview.

Horgan pointed out that the Liberal government has criminalized religious speech against homosexual behaviour by passing Bill C-250 and redefined marriage.

Catholic concerns

Horgan expects the re-definition of marriage will become an issue again in the next election, but in the meantime Parliament will be dealing with a number of issues of concern to Catholics in addition to assisted suicide, such as raising the age of consent for sexual activity and decriminalizing marijuana.

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