Euthanasia issue rises again

Conference told of CMA plans to revisit the issue

- Design Pics photo

By BILL GLEN
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

The spectre of legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide is raising its head again in Canada and some pro-life health-care providers are determined to stop it.

"I will scream and scream," Dr. Fawzy Morcos, former chief of the obstetrics and gynecology department at Edmonton's Misericordia Hospital, said of a proposed review of the Canadian Medical Association's opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Morcos plans to raise his objections at the CMA's annual convention in August where it is expected the agenda will include a re-examination of the issue.

"Unless the medical community - and the community at-large - gets involved academically and politically, the threat to the sanctity of life in Canada is imminent," he said.

"We must show we are not going away. Who is going to do the killing anyway? The physicians and nurses? They don't want to be labelled as agents of death."

Morcos was one of about 20 presenters at the Euthanasia and End-of-Life conference May 25-26 at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Edmonton.

The speakers covered a range of topics including the CMA's perspective on euthanasia, the Hippocratic oath and the meaning of life from a Christian perspective. About 150 people attended.

In an interview, Morcos said, "We have seen what has happened to a lot of the social conservative issues in how they start with benign rules that become something we don't recognize. That's the slippery slope.

Sanctity of life

"My concern is that over the next 10 to 20 years, we have to be very aggressive promoting the idea of the sanctity of life."

Archbishop Richard Smith says no one can dictate the end of his or her own life, or that of another. That is God's decision.

"God is the author of life - not we," Smith said.

"Christians understand human life as God's gift. We are therefore its stewards, and in no way its masters," Smith said in a talk to the conference.

"Part of the covenant is to be in a life-affirming relationship with the patient." Dr. Sheila Rutledge

"This concept of stewardship needs to be claimed and developed, and to it we must give effective witness by our own lives. This seems to be one of the decisive points of difference between those who are opposed to euthanasia and assisted suicide and those who promote these practices."

Dr. Sheila Rutledge Harding noted that to prescribe or administer a lethal dose of medicine to any patient, even if asked, or to counsel any such thing, is a breach of the Hippocratic oath.

"Part of the covenant is to be in a life-affirming relationship with the patient," said Harding, associate dean for medical education at the University of Saskatchewan. "My task is to cure sometimes, to relieve often and to comfort always."

Dr. Ruth Collins-Nakai is past president of the CMA and former president of the Alberta Medical Association.

Currently, Canadian physicians should not participate in euthanasia and assisted suicide, she said. Every few years, there is a challenge, but nothing to date has led the CMA to change its policy.

More palliative care

However, Collins-Nakai says there are concerns that there are not enough palliative care services for patients. Nor are there adequate suicide prevention programs.

The Quality End-of-Life Care Coalition in Canada estimates that only 25 per cent of Canadians who need palliative and end-of-life services have access to those services.

Also there has not been appropriate research on medical decision-making around the time of death, she said.

"I will scream and scream." - Dr. Fawzy Morcos

"Any changes in proposed legislation of policy need to be discussed with the public, and there needs to be public input on those."

In 2005, a private member's bill to allow assisted suicide in Canada was introduced in the House of Commons, but died when Parliament prorogued.

The last national poll conducted by the CMA regarding euthanasia occurred in 2003. At that time, 49 per cent of Canadians were in favour of legalizing euthanasia, 37 per cent were opposed and 13 per cent were undecided.

Collins-Nakai said it is imperative patients have their questions answered with appropriate information about the dying process.

"It is important that we respect the right of a patient to accept, or reject, medical or health recommendations about their life."

Internationally, three countries and one state in the United States have legalized some form of aid-in-dying.

Belgium permits voluntary euthanasia while the Netherlands permits physician-assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia. Switzerland permits the right to die; it permits assisted suicide.

"There is a significant medical tourism to Switzerland where people go for assisted suicide," said Collins-Nakai.

Oregon has permitted physician-assisted suicide since 1997.

Jason West, a philosophy professor at Newman Theological College, said euthanasia is a choice born of hopelessness.

To counter this, those in pain should be drawn into the community so they realize that they matter and their life has meaning.

"They have many lessons to offer others that no one else is in a position to teach us," West said.

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