December 1, 2009 Features

The right to life and to death?

A private member’s bill aims to circumstantially legalize euthanasia

by Jessie Mathieson

GRAPHICS CLARE RASPOPOW, SEANNY2000, DIVINE HARVESTER

Canadian doctors have recently re-opened the debate about the patients’ rights to die and doctor-assisted suicide to alleviate pain and suffering, commonly known as euthanasia.
As the Criminal Code of Canada proscribes doctor-assisted suicide, are practitioners wrong if they find it unethical to abide by the law? Or are there times when terminating a human life is justifiable?

Hanging in the balance is the newly proposed Bill C-384, which aims to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Euthanasia will have another hour of debate in the House of Commons on Dec. 1.

Francine Lalonde, a Bloc Québécois member of Parliament and wife of Quebec physician Guy Lamarche, has introduced the private members’ bill to the current session of Parliament, hoping to alter sections 14, 222 and 241 of Canada’s Criminal Code that address euthanasia under laws against homicide and assisted suicide. The bill will be voted on Dec. 2.

Unlike regular parliamentary bills, where members are forced to vote with the rest of their party, private members’ bills allow them to vote however they like.

The Fédération des médecins spécialites du Québec has recently argued that euthanasia is a legitimate and practiced form of medical treatment.

From August to September 2009, the FMSQ surveyed 2,000 participating Quebec physicians, finding that euthanasia is already practiced in Quebec. Fifty-two per cent of the doctors surveyed reported encountering the treatment and 84 per cent said they were ready to hold a debate on the issue.

Death dilemma

Causing controversy across the province and country, the euthanasia dilemma is something McGill undergraduate student Stefan Link reflects on every time he visits his grandmother.
His grandmother, Lillian Balangero-Birtz, has been afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease for as long as he can remember. Balangero-Birtz was once a prominent lawyer in Montreal, but now she cannot recognize her own children.

The last time he went to visit her, Link recalled, she was screaming the whole time and the only [thing she said was] “pourquoi?”

Link questions at what point, if ever, do we consider a certain state of life worse than not living at all.

“I am not in a place to speak for my grandmother,” he said, when asked if he thought euthanasia could be an ethical treatment for her mental suffering. “But if it was me, and I was aware of the fact that I would inevitably become like my Nona, unable to experience the pleasures of life, I would like to have the option to die,” he said, adding that it is extremely difficult to determine when that point of no return is.

Link added that there is a need for absolute consent, proper technology and diagnosis before going forward with euthanasia.

A recent case in Belgium made international headlines when a new brain scanning device discovered that Rom Houben—who had lived for 23 years in an unresponsive state—was fully conscious of his surroundings. Doctors thought he was in a vegetative state.

In Belgium as well as in Canada, the issue really rests on when and how a person can give legitimate consent. Bill C-384 allows another person to represent the patient in the case that they are not of lucid mind. Parliament must be positive in the bill’s criteria that this representative must ensure the best interests of the patient are met.

A slippery slope

Dr. Margaret Somerville, the founding director of the McGill Centre for Medical Ethics and Law, is against the legalization of euthanasia. Somerville believes a doctor’s job is to cure illnesses and alleviate suffering, but does not want to see medical practitioners acting as “society’s executioners.”

Pointing out that the decision to euthanize ultimately deals with extremely vulnerable people who could easily become the targets of physicians or loved ones, Somerville argued that the problem with legalizing euthanasia is it creates a “slippery slope” towards legalizing murder.
“Scarce health care resources could victimize the aging population,” she said, adding that she believes palliative care—treatment to minimize the suffering of the terminally ill—is the best way to deal with patients in severe pain. She also voiced concern that the legal freedom of euthanasia could cause an over-burdened loved one to be quick to pull the plug.

Many organizations that promote disabled rights in Canada have also joined the opposition to Bill C-384.

Like the elderly, the disabled are extremely vulnerable to loopholes in the legal system.
Marie White, a chairperson for The Council of Canadians with Disabilities, wrote
an open letter to the

MPs in Abilities Magazine saying her organization is “alarmed” by the bill, urging them to vote against it.

A history of the debate in Canada

Canadian courts have been facing cases involving right to die scenarios since the early ‘90s, and have even ruled in favour of euthanasia in some cases.

In the 1992 “Nancy B.” case, the Quebec Superior Court ruled that turning off the respirator of the incurably ill woman—at her request—was not a criminal offence.

But Canadian history also reveals how, under certain circumstances, the law penalizes patients who want to die, as well as the doctors and care-givers who assist them.
In 1994, Robert Latimer was convicted of second-degree murder for suffocating his severely disabled 12-year-old daughter Tracy.

In the same year, Sue Rodriguez sat before the Supreme Court of Canada and asked the jury, “Who owns my life?"

Diagnosed in 1991 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (commonly called ALS), a neurodegenerative disease that leads to loss of voluntary muscle movement followed by death, Rodriguez appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada to be allowed to die with dignity. She argued that the criminalization of euthanasia violated her right to the security of her person, as enshrined in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Despite the court’s decision against her—in a split vote of five to four—Rodriguez followed through with her plan and was euthanized Feb. 12, 1994. No case was brought against the doctor or her husband.

Two days later, then-justice minister Allan Rock suggested that treatment cessation and assisted suicide be considered by Parliament.

Euthanasia and the law

The current debate on euthanasia comes down to whether the proposed law or the existing one is a violation of the Charter.

Any legislation to legalize euthanasia will have to draw a specific line of when and how a person consents the “right to die,” which is always difficult to determine, especially when speaking for someone else’s life.

Ultimately, the Canadian justice system needs to come to a decision on how to deal with euthanasia so they neither victimize innocent physicians and families, nor make the patients even more vulnerable to human error.

Parliament must decide on Dec. 2 if Bill C-384 can assist the people whose lives are on the line and the doctors who are legally unable to assist them, or if passing euthanasia legalization will make patients more vulnerable.