Quebec Passes Euthanasia Law

[Big Guy]

The Quebec legislature has passed a law that would make euthanasia legal.

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/06/06/author-of-quebec-euthanasia-bill-says-system-will-prevent-abuses

This is the first law of its kind in Canada.

Will the federal government allow it to stand?

Are other provinces going to follow suit?

Is this law a good idea or a bad idea?

[scribblet]

I don't have a problem with terminally people wanting to die as long as there are strong safeguard. I do worry about abuses and how it could put vulnerable people at higher risk. You know, let's get rid of Grandma cos we can't wait to get her money.

[WWWTT]

Briefly heard this on the car radio yesterday.

I thought I heard that the federal government was going to appeal it or something like that. Something also about this being in a federal jurisdiction of law, therefore the Quebec motion can not be binding or something involved like that?

WWWTT

[WWWTT]

Watching my father die several years ago was a torture!

Fortunately cancer did the dirty deed and put a quick end to an unnatural inhuman painful death.

It's ironic that modern medicine can extend life, but from what I have witnessed, that does not necessarily always mean that the quality of life has improved.

Almost a year before my father died, I had an incredible feline friend I named Bob that I had to ask a Vet to put to sleep.

You see, Bob had FIV that had blown out to full AIDS and was suffering incredibly for a couple years. I can only watch my friend suffer in pain for so long and then had to say goodbye.

It was the right thing to do.

WWWTT

[Topaz]

I'm A 1000% WITH YOU WWWTT, I also had my mother die for cancer, a slow 8 months of watching this person shrunk down to skin and bones, the worse! When a person has cancer of the lungs , they die because they can't breathe, which no humane person should have to watch their relative die like that! I'm all for a strong tight laws, for people who the doctors can't help to live , given the CHOICE to die, while they still have their whole body and mind. All this should be done in a Living Will years before and updated . There are ways to make this lawful but there has to be the separation of church and state. Harper won't deal with this issue , just like the issues of abortion, and pot.

[Guest]

I agree with the previous posts. It seems to me to be a crime to force someone to live on in any kind of pain or torment when the means exist to relieve them of their suffering.

[Big Guy]

The text of the bill appears to have very comprehensive conditions for euthanasia to be applied. I do not see how it can be misinterpreted or abused.

An English copy of the bill (Bill 52) can be found at:

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.assnat.qc.ca%2FMedia%2FProcess.aspx%3FMediaId%3DANQ.Vigie.Bll.DocumentGenerique_72865en&ei=hSmTU8yyHIyjyATg3YHIDA&usg=AFQjCNFxgmE5DO3sdacMPBma8TYdEHWllQ

A summary is found at:

http://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/2013/06/12/quebec-provides-choice-in-dying.php

[WWWTT]

In my father's case, he had a couple of strokes and a heart attack.

This weakened him severely. In his last 6 months, it was problem after problem after problem.

Then 2 months before he died, his intestinal cancer returned with a vengeance and the doctors said that there was no point in attempting to cure it because of all the other health issues. It was actually a blessing to exit from pain and humiliating weakness.

WWWTT

[Shady]

Fortunately cancer did the dirty deed and put a quick end to an unnatural inhuman painful death.

There's ways of treating pain without killing somebody.

[Guest]

Just ask them what they would rather do, and leave it up to them.

[Boges]

In Europe, where this has been the law for awhile it seems it's almost expected that someone with a terminal condition should want to check out.

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/221650/dangers-euthanasia-spelt-out

[WWWTT]

There's ways of treating pain without killing somebody.

Yes very true! I agree!

However there were many more issues with his failing health.

The amount of medication required turned him into a person I never knew.

WWWTT

[Guest]

In Europe, where this has been the law for awhile it seems it's almost expected that someone with a terminal condition should want to check out.

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/221650/dangers-euthanasia-spelt-out

It might be so. That's no reason not to allow a person a choice. If unintended consequences occur they should be dealt with, but the option to end one's life with dignity should be available from our health care system, and the choice should be that of the patient and the attending MD only.

[Rue]

I totally agree with it and the intention of the Quebec government and its overdue for the rest of Canada. The problem unfortunately is that euthanasia law necessarily deals with criminal law which is exclusively federal jurisdiction so that if this law is challenged on those grounds it will be found what we call ultra vires the jurisdiction of Quebec and be tossed.

I think the Quebec government knows this but none-the-less is saying to the federal government, wake up and do something.

I think this is an apolitical issue in terms of party politics.

We have a report compiled by the Senate that analyzed euthanasia laws across the world and ever evolving technology leaving people to live in chronic states of pain with no hope. Its a good report but it sits collecting dust because the federal government won't touch this issue. None of the parties want to touch it and avoid talking about it.

Canada has to act to reform our criminal law on this matter. What is also patently unfair is we expose physicians to a no win situation. Their code of conduct says they must vigorously give their patients as much medication as is necessary to prevent pain BUT if they die, then that doctor could be accused of assisted suicide, manslaughter, other criminal liability not to mention civil liability.

Living wills are common now and they do influence doctors but there legal effect is not necessarily binding.

[Rue]

In direct response to Shady, yes, its called hospice care. The principle is to provide someone in the final stages of death pain medication but not killing them. Easier said than done. Some people are in such tremendous pain necessarily the medication they are given for it might kill them.

Here is what a lot of hospice care places do now. People are returned home to their own beds and given a morphine drip where the patient administers the dose of morphine for the pain. Eventually they die in their sleep.

My friend died that way in Toronto

Some unfortunately can't die that way. They are completely paralyzed or had a stroke.

Let me give you one case Shady that highlights the difficulty of this situation in terms of the law and its based on a true case in Halifax. A gentleman was in his final stages of cancer. He asked for the breathing tube to be taken out and his family said their goodbyes and he was then ready to die. The doctor on call in the Intensive Care Unit was an Emergency Physician working overtime. She was known as a compassionate and well respected doctor.

The patient of course was skin and bones from wasting away and was ready but after the tube came out he did not die, he began choking caught in a rare state of slow suffocation. He screamed out lashing that he could not breath, help him die.His family of course went into shock screaming they put him out of his misery. A code was called and this poor man was thrashing on the table choking.

The doctor administered a huge dose of morphine and he died. The family was grateful.

Believe it or not this doctor was charged with murder. The City of Halifax was split down the middle.Pro-lifer/anti abortionist groups, fundamentalist religious groups and disabled groups formed one side demanding she be charged with murder. They argued only God should have let this man die not the doctor and/or that this set a precedent to get rid of disabled people by killing them.

The other side of the debate were the family and those arguing the doctor acted with compassion and did the only right thing to do

The Judge was faced with an impossible decision but here is what he did. He went back and looked at the log of the drugs administered to the poor man and said in the previous 24 hours leading up to his death he could not know if it was the last dose, or the accumulation of the last dose with all the other doses given before it by other doctors, that had killed this man, and so with that impossibility of beyond reasonable doubt proof, he had t dismiss the case as not having sufficient evidence to proceed with a charge.

Thank God for that brilliant Judge avoiding an impossible situation.

Today disabled people fear if we allow euthanasia it sets a precedent to get rid of them. We can pass a law that protects them from that. We can also pass a law that makes sure its only in the final stage of an illness where there is absolutely no hope and [ain is inevitable that we give patients this option.

Take a look at the current laws in Washington and Oregon states to see how it works. You go before a panel of 10 doctors who review your request.

It has safeguards built into it. Its not meant to replace hospice care but be used at the end of hospice care in the final stages where death is inevitable.

No one should be forced to live in overwhelming pain.Since our technology keeps us alive now in situations nature never contemplated we have to understand we can't trap people in inhumane nightmares. People should have the right to die just as they have the right to live.

No we do not want people taking advantage of their state to kill them and no we do not want someone with a mental incapacity and unclear mind making such decisions. But the laws in Oregon and Washington screen such things out.

Now in Holland, you can in theory simply ask your gp for a medical clearance and then you can be administered a fatal dose. On paper anyone could die. In reality its only being used by terminally ill people but I defer to Dutch people on this forum on their laws and how its working.

In Switzerland they have death clinics. You can go there and die in these clinics with drugs when terminal.

Some argue these clinics are making money out of death, The arguments are similar to he pro life-po choice arguments with abortion.

[eyeball]

There's ways of treating pain without killing somebody.

Yes, but the risk of triggering a moral panic weighs heavily.

[Topaz]

The bottom line is this will give people a CHOICE to either use this law or not to use this law down the road and most of the decision after the person makes it, are the doctors. We already have the right to NOT be on life support, so why not bring in the right to die law.

[eyeball]

why not bring in the right to die law.

The unanswerable question, WWJD.

Whilst that argument grinds on and on and on, would it be too much to ask for a separate law or more to the point, no law at all for atheists who just don't care what Jesus thinks?

[Hydraboss]

To Shady's comment: It is not always possible to control pain with medication depending on the ailment and the progression. My wife, as an RN, treated patients with bone cancer that simply could not get relief from the morphine PCA and even when switched to dilaudid drip, the dose required to ease pain sufficiently would have absolutely killed them. Not an unusual situation unfortunately. The worst was when she was on pediatric intensive care and this type of situation would occur.

I know of one case where the decision to "withdraw care" had to be made to prevent the person from slipping into a permanent coma, from which there would be no escape - medical science can keep almost anyone alive in any condition if they have to. Once that bridge is crossed, there is no way back and it's too late to make the call then. So people are forced to make the decision for another before they're ready.

There is a point in some people's lives when it is much kinder to simply let them go. Canada should recognize that.

[Hal 9000]

It's really a matter of "what constitutes pain?"...and, who judges when someone "in pain" can't advocate for themselves"?