Euthanasia

[waldo]

targeted tax cuts, tax cuts and some tax cuts targeted at the suburban middle class....and maybe a few more tax cuts.

easy for you to say, hey... once again, given your incessant call for the missing Liberal 2015 election platform, where's that Harper Conservative platform, hey? See, I can play your silly game too!

[waldo]

It represents it no more, or less, than the Trudeau quote you provided...

no - sorry... when the quote comes as an official response from the office of the Harper Conservative Justice Minister... when the quote refers to the position of the Harper Conservative government, that quote represents... MORE. But like I said, if you feel it doesn't represent the Harper Conservative governments position, please... please... correct my use of that quote. Do that... instead of deflecting away.

[Derek 2.0]

no - sorry... when the quote comes as an official response from the office of the Harper Conservative Justice Minister... when the quote refers to the position of the Harper Conservative government, that quote represents... MORE. But like I said, if you feel it doesn't represent the Harper Conservative governments position, please... please... correct my use of that quote. Do that... instead of deflecting away.

If Mackay’s comment represents the Harper Government’s stance, which represents the LPC…….Trudeau’s comment or the Party resolution?

[waldo]

If Mackay’s comment represents the Harper Government’s stance, which represents the LPC…….Trudeau’s comment or the Party resolution?

given that comment from the office of Harper Conservative Justice Minister, Peter MacKay... given the Harper Conservative government successfully challenged and overturned the June 2012 ruling by the BC Supreme Court... please state your interpretation of the Harper Conservative government's position on euthanasia/assisted suicide. You certainly have no trouble barking... but you sure are hesitant to actually say anything. So, again... state the Harper Conservative position (your interpretation of)... waiting!

nothing is stopping you from answering your own question as relates to the adopted Liberal Party of Canada policy resolution versus the quoted Trudeau statement. I certainly don't have a definitive answer for you... other than a raised concern, I don't read a formal position statement within that Trudeau quote. Perhaps you do... or you're privy to other statement(s) Trudeau has made on this subject. Please proceed and actually... say something!

[Derek 2.0]

given that comment from the office of Harper Conservative Justice Minister, Peter MacKay... given the Harper Conservative government successfully challenged and overturned the June 2012 ruling by the BC Supreme Court... please state your interpretation of the Harper Conservative government's position on euthanasia/assisted suicide. You certainly have no trouble barking... but you sure are hesitant to actually say anything. So, again... state the Harper Conservative position (your interpretation of)... waiting!

nothing is stopping you from answering your own question as relates to the adopted Liberal Party of Canada policy resolution versus the quoted Trudeau statement. I certainly don't have a definitive answer for you... other than a raised concern, I don't read a formal position statement within that Trudeau quote. Perhaps you do... or you're privy to other statement(s) Trudeau has made on this subject. Please proceed and actually... say something!

I think you've stated the position of the Government quite clearly........what is clear as mud, is the Liberal Party of Canada's position going into 2015.......why the confusion among the Trudeau LPC?

[waldo]

I think you've stated the position of the Government quite clearly........

if you now say that, what was the intent/meaning of your comment, "It represents it no more, or less, than the Trudeau quote you provided..."? Like I said, you're a waste of time! You claimed/implied the quoted statement from the office of Harper Conservative Justice Minister, Peter MacKay, didn't necessarily speak for the government... and now, you've done a 180 turn on that!

what is clear as mud, is the Liberal Party of Canada's position going into 2015.......why the confusion among the Trudeau LPC?

like I said, "nothing is stopping you from answering your own question as relates to the adopted Liberal Party of Canada policy resolution versus the quoted Trudeau statement. I certainly don't have a definitive answer for you... other than a raised concern, I don't read a formal position statement within that Trudeau quote. Perhaps you do... or you're privy to other statement(s) Trudeau has made on this subject. Please proceed and actually... say something!"

perhaps you could actually step-up and provide the basis for your "confusion assessment"... won't... don't bother. I've wasted enough time with your continued nonsense!

[Derek 2.0]

if you now say that, what was the intent/meaning of your comment, "It represents it no more, or less, than the Trudeau quote you provided..."? Like I said, you're a waste of time! You claimed/implied the quoted statement from the office of Harper Conservative Justice Minister, Peter MacKay, didn't necessarily speak for the government... and now, you've done a 180 turn on that!

That a given stance by the Party/Government might not be inclusive of the individual membership……..on this issue, specifically the Libertarian wing of the party………..

My questioning of the LPC view, to clarify if the Trudeau Liberals are facing an inverted approach to the mater….Namely the membership generally favouring “medically-assisted death”, with the Leadership showing reservations to campaigning on it.

[Big Guy]

Douglas DeGuerre, a Second World War veteran, was gravely ill by the weeks preceding his death. On Sept. 17, 2008, his legs were amputated above the knee. On Sept. 22, 2008, DeGuerre died of cardiac arrest at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre after battling a slew of illnesses, including congestive heart failure, diabetes and hypertension. He was 88.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/09/04/sunnybrook_hospital_broke_law_by_enforcing_donotresuscitate_order_says_watchdog.html

Against the wishes of his daughter, his doctors had chosen to NOT administer any more procedures because they would not help but only cause more pain. His daughter has successfully appealed to reopen the case against his doctors (BTW, she is suing the hospital and doctors for over $1 million) for their decision.

There had been speculation about whether a recent decision (landmark 2013 Supreme Court ruling barring doctors from unilaterally ending life support for the comatose Ontario man) would apply to cases in which physicians withheld, rather than withdrew, medical treatment.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

[Rue]

The Law as it stands now is clear on one thing. If someone is deemed by law to lack capacity to make their own decisions and so a court has appointed a guardian or they appointed a medical power of attorney to someone before they went incapacitated, that power of attorney or guardian can not be ignired if they ask the person be left alive and it can not be proven they are dead.

A doctor can not ignore them in such cases. . The case that made that clear is the one with an Iranian man of Shiite belief still at Sonnybrook. He is brain dead. His wifewho was a family doctor in Iran and is also a devout Shiite does not want the plug pulled on him. She believes it is her religious obligation to keep him alive as long as their is a possibility he might live. The doctors tried to go to court arguing he's dead and there was no point prolonging his braid dead body but the court made it clear the doctor in such a case does not make the final decision the power of attorney or guardian does.

Such issues are not issues that deal with euthanasia. Euthanasia is about a person asking someone to kill them because they are in pain and want to die.

The issue we are talking about in your case Big Guy is a right to life issue and a legal question as to who makes the right to life decision when the person can not make that decision for themselves.

Its a bit different.

If I am of full capacity and understand the consequences of my illness and wish to die, I think I should be able to and indeed in many nations now and the states of Washington, Oregon and Vermont I could exercise that right.

If I am not of capacity to make that decision and I leave instructions to my guardian or power of attorney not to prolong my life with uncessary means its not legally binding on them but I hope they would honour it and I would hope any doctor reading my living will would honour it if they found it but doctor's are legally exposed to homicide, criminal negligence, manslaughter, assault and battery criminal charges and civil law suits if they act alone and so its nof fair to them to carry all the burdern of the decision.

I do believe though each person and their power of attorney/guardian must make that decision not the state and ideally with the full advise and input of their doctor and clergy, etc..

Now if a doctor chooses to want to try over-ride the power of attorney or guardian, I think what the courts have said is, they will allow ithis in certain situations if its to keep someone alive in certain instances, but they won't side with the doctor if there is no consensus from that power of attorney or guardian to allow the plug pulled that would result in death.

What we have had decided over the yearsare some cases where the courts have over-ridden parents who did not want their children to have blood transfusions for say, leukemia when they were Christian Scientists and the court stepped in and ordered them to prevent the child from dying. Then again in other cases the courts have decided the exact opposite choosing instead to say the child has at 16, even 14, the ability to make religious choices of their own that might over-ride their actual best hope of remaining alive. They have gone both ways.

There was a case in Ontario where a young aboriginal girl asked that the doctor stop giving her chemotherapy (she had undergone it twice before and was dying and the chemotherapy would have only prolonged her discomfort) and the doctors did go to court demanding the chemotherapy be ordered but in that case her parents successfuylly argued the chemotherapy was just too painful on her and it was not allowed. The problem is that was a unique case because the parents argued aboriginal rights to choose their own aboriginal medical treatments. In that manner they coudl invoke the Charter for protection. I am not sure if that would have worked though for a non aboriginal. Its hard to say.

Each case is looked at individually. You can't come up with one blanket approach of course.

A model working very well for people who want to die can be found in Washington and Oregon.

In regards to situations however where people want to keep brain dead people alive or in prolonged hopeless situations where they suffer then its a tough one.

I did speak of the farmer, Latimer and his case on this site. This man's child had the i.q. of a 6 month old. She could understand pain and who her mother and father were but that was it. She had a permanent hole in her stomach from an i.v. tube that remained infected that fed her because she was unable to eat more than a spoonful at a time. She had no control of her body. On top of that her bones would fuse togetehr as they grew causing her to live

in overwhelming pain. Her father went to over 20 doctors seeking help and each one said, there was nothing they could no but continue to break her bones every six months or so. Her body of course could not be administered anasthetics. Imagine living with your bones being constantly broken.

Her father could no longer stand her suffering and placed her in his truck and ashphixiated her with carbon monoxide. She ded gently in her sleep. He was charged with homicide. The jury asked the Judge to promise that if they found him guilty, the court would not put him in jail. The Judge said sure. Then once they found him guilty the Judge in fact lied and put him in jail. That case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada and on one vote he was found guilty of homicide. He was recently let out after serving his sentence with no early release.

That case shows a serious issue and that is we can have situations where someone in unbreable pain might be kept alive by a loved one or guardian or power of attorney because they feel they have to keep that person alive at all costs because of the law or their own beliefs which may not necessarily be in the best interests of the person in pain.

That is a bit different then say someone not in pain who is brain dead and his family wants him to be kept on a breathing machine believing he's not dead and for religious reasons.

Each case is different. We can only hope that courts and you and I can find a way to balance compassion, humanity, ethics and legal rights so that good people like Mr. Latimer never have to go through what he did. That man did not ever belong in jail. If that was my daughter I would have done the same thing at least I would hope I had his courage to do what he did. The law failed Mr. Latimer. and there are many others like him today suffering as we speak.

I would hope we can respect individual religious and right to life beliefs and accommodate those who wish to die without endangering those vulnerable people who might be taken advantage and unecessarily killed by a greedy relative in a rush to get their inheritance.

We also want to guard against uncessarily kiling people because it saves money.

There's a wide spectrum of issues involved and we need to talk about them now, today, as all the baby boomers now face senior years and extended hospital stays with ever prolonged medical conditions which will render them in pain or hopeless situations negatively impacting on the quality of their lives.

This issue It triggers great fear in the disabled community because disabled people feel it will open the door to make it easier to kill them rather than spend money on them when hospitals get crowded.

Also very religious pro lifers feel only God should make such decisions not doctors.

Myself I don't like the idea of a doctor by himself or herself making any decision. I prefer the idea of a medical panel. I also think the law can not ignore the wishes of a guardian or power of attorney. To do that would open a can of worms.

Its complex indeed.

One would like to think if someone is in hopeless pain with no cure or hope that the pain will not end, they be allowed to die peacefully and without pain.

One would also like to think next of kin or powers of attorney or guardians are not ignored.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Rue

[Guest]

This is promising. If they can kill murderers and rapists just because they ask for it, surely such rights ought to be afforded the rest of us.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/16/jailed-rapist-and-murderer-in-belgium-gets-approval-to-be-euthanized-after-3-decades-in-jail/

Edited September 17, 2014 by bcsapper

[Mighty AC]

Nice. I'm sure we deserve at least some of the rights we grant criminals and dignity pets.

[Big Guy]

The Quebec Assisted Dying act has been upheld by the Quebec Court of Appeal.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-assisted-dying-euthanasia-law-1.3375853

I hope the federal Liberals now begin to draw up a national act and that Ontario begin on one of our own.

[Guest]

Hear hear...