Canadian Euthanasia Activist Pressuring Catholic Hospital to Permit Euthanasia

Alex Schadenberg
By National Right to Life

Jocelyn Downie, the long-time euthanasia activist and academic, is now turning her attention to forcing St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and the Sisters of St. Martha to permit euthanasia.

St. Martha’s Hospital is known for excellence in palliative care.

Downie believes that access to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD–euthanasia) transcends Catholic Healthcare and the agreement that St Martha’s Hospital have with the provincial government.

Downie argues in an opinion piece that was published in The Chronicle Herald on December 17 that [T]he current approach allowing forced transfers violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act.

Fortunately, there are at least three solutions. First, the Sisters Antigonish could agree to a compromise policy that would permit St. Martha’s to refuse to allow assessment or provision of MAiD within its walls (by non-objecting providers from outside the hospital), but only if the patient can be transferred to another location without undue harm or delay as determined by the Nova Scotia MAiD program.

Second, if the Sisters will not agree to this compromise, the Nova Scotia government could legislate it. Institutions that receive provincial funding would then be required to allow the assessment and provision of MAiD on their premises when the patient cannot be transferred to another location without undue harm or delay.

Third, alternatively, the NSHA [Nova Scotia Health Authority] could simply not renew the 1996 agreement. Going this route, the NSHA could cease to be bound by it as early as Sept. 28, 2019. Then MAiD assessment and provision would be available without compromise within what would presumably be a renamed secular hospital.

Downie has for years sold herself as a “neutral” academic, but for those who are involved in the issue of euthanasia, she is recognized as a long-time euthanasia activist.

Downie has had several successes, such as convincing the Ontario College of Physicians to accept a policy that disregards the conscience rights of Ontario physicians. She was instrumental in the writing of the 2012 Carter decision by Justice Lynn Smith, and she had her hand in the 2015 Supreme Court of Canada’s Carter v. Canada decision in which the Court unanimously struck down Canada’s assisted suicide law

If you read the articles about Downie you will notice that promoting euthanasia has been her life-long work.

Hopefully the Nova Scotia government will recognize Downie as being a euthanasia activist and ignore her pressure tactics oriented to eliminating Catholic Healthcare in Canada.

It is Downie’s goal to use St. Martha’s Hospital as a stepping stone to force all Catholic Healthcare institutions in Canada to permit euthanasia on their premises.

Editor’s note. This appeared on Mr. Schadenberg’s blog and is reposted with permission.

Website: National Right to Life

Canada Considers Euthanizing Mentally Ill Patients

In the early years, euthanasia for psychological suffering was rare but in the past few years it is sky rocketing.

By Alex Schadenberg
Life News

Canada legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in June 2016 under the term: Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).

In December 2016, the federal government announced that the Council of Canadian Academies would research and provide recommendations concerning the expansion of euthanasia in three areas: mature minors, people who are incompetent but previously requested MAiD and euthanasia for psychological suffering alone. This article concerns the last group.

The Netherlands and Belgium legalized euthanasia in 2002. The legislation in both of these countries technically allowed euthanasia for “psychological suffering.” In the early years, euthanasia for psychological suffering was rare but in the past few years it is sky rocketing.

A commentary by Dr. Damiaan Denys, the President of the Dutch Society of Psychiatrists, was published in The American Journal of Psychiatry (September 2018) titled: Is Euthanasia Psychiatric Treatment?

Denys commentary is based on a 42-year-old married woman who requested euthanasia for psychiatric reasons while receiving treatment from his team. The Psychiatric team disapproved of her euthanasia death because treatment options existed but the woman died by euthanasia anyway. Denys wrote:

Although we had treated her intensively for 2 years, our advice was disregarded. Eight weeks later we received the obituary of the patient.

Denys outlines the problems with psychiatric euthanasia based on experience in the Netherlands. He wrote:

…whether euthanasia is an option for psychiatric patients, there are medical and ethical dilemmas related to the practical process of decision making and execution. 

• How can we reconcile the daily practice of reducing suicidal ideas and behaviors in patients with respecting a death wish in single cases? 
• How can we distinguish between symptoms and existential needs? 
• How can we decide whether a psychiatrist is sufficiently autonomous to judge euthanasia? 
• Does the fragile therapeutic relationship between psychiatrist and patient not bias judgment? 
• How are differences in opinion between psychiatrist and patient resolved?

Although psychiatrists are not legally obliged to approve or execute euthanasia, neither can they interfere once a request is granted by a third party, as illustrated in the aforementioned case.

Life News article continues here

Canada Laying Groundwork for Child Euthanasia

By Michael Cook
National Right to Life

Euthanasia, or “medical aid in dying”, was authorised by Canada’s Supreme Court in June 2016. It was a controversial decision and the controversy is far from over. Three issues were left hanging: euthanasia for “mature minors”, euthanasia for people with mental illness, and advance directives for euthanasia. The government asked the Council of Canadian Academies to produce a report on these issues by December this year.

Euthanasia for mature minors is a particularly sticky issue. In the Journal of Medical Ethics, several Canadian paediatricians and bioethicists construct an argument supporting it.

First of all, they frame euthanasia (MAID) a part of a continuum of palliative care.

it is wrong to force a person to live in circumstances of unendurable and irremediable suffering and … the wishes of capable patients should be respected within legal limits, especially in such an intimate matter as how they choose to die. Persons, in other words, have a right to life, not a duty to live …

If MAID is essentially a normal medical procedure, it follows that there is no need for “special procedures for managing communication, confidentiality and capacity assessment”.

One consequence of this is that doctors should be proactive in suggesting euthanasia to children for they have an obligation to inform patients of their healthcare options.

What about a young person’s capacity for consent? In Ontario, “young people can be and are found capable of making their own medical decisions, even when those decisions may result in their death”. This is not universally accepted in Canada, so it may be necessary to tweak the law.

How about the role of parents? What if a young person requests MAID but their parents object? The authors argue that if a young person is capable of making their own medical decisions, there is no reason why parents have to be informed. “If we regard MAID as practically and ethically equivalent to other medical decisions that result in the end of life, then confidentiality regarding MAID should be managed in this same way.”

How should hospitals manage their public relations? Permitting child euthanasia is sure to be extremely controversial so they need to reduce the social stigma. The authors propose HIV/AIDS as a model:

If we take the HIV model as our strategy for publicly messaging MAID, we would proceed by providing MAID in a matter-of-fact way that may, over time, reduce the social burden both on patients seeking this procedure and clinicians providing it.

Editor’s note. This appeared at BioEdge and is reposted with permission.

Website: National Right to Life

766 Babies in Canada Born Alive After Failed Abortions and Left to Die

By Patricia Maloney, Canadian Blogger

Life News

According to new data, livebirth late-term abortions are still happening in Canada. And the numbers are way too high.

According to CIHI, There were 766 late-term livebirth abortions in a five year period from 2013/2014 to 2017/2018. These numbers are even higher since they exclude Quebec.

There has been much speculation about the reasons for these late-term livebirth abortions but we have no hard data on why they happen since the reasons or circumstances aren’t published with the data.

A study was done in Quebec in 2016. That study:

“found the number of infants who were born alive and died after an abortion jumped from one per 100,000 in 1986-1999, to 19.4 per 100,000 between 2000 and 2012. Those accidental live births totalled 218 babies.”

The study’s author asked these sobering questions: 

“How are such infants cared for?” they ask in the journal Neonatology.

 “If not resuscitated, is palliative care provided? Are the infants admitted to neonatal units or do they die in the delivery room?”

All information regarding the reasons they happen, and what happens to the child after they are born alive, is anecdotal.

But they do happen. This we know for a fact and we know the numbers: 766 late-term livebirth abortions in a five years period.

(Note: below is all my data on this. 2017-2018, as well as data from 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 is new)

2013/2014 to 2017/2018 livebirth stillbirth abortion (Source: Compiled from CIHI)

2013-2014 livebirth stillbirth abortion (Source: Statistics Canada and CIHI)
2014-2015 and 2015-2016 livebirth stillbirth abortion (Source: CIHI)
2017-2018 livebirth stillbirth abortion (Source: CIHI)
2016-2017 livebirth stillbirth abortion (Source: CIHI) and this

LifeNews Note: This appeared on Patricia’s blog Run With Life.

Website: Life News

Canadian Law Says a Baby Doesn’t Become a Human Being Until She is Outside Her Mother’s Body

By Micaiah Bilger
Life News

Canada is one of the worst countries in the world for protecting unborn babies’ rights.

A recent assault of a pregnant women and her unborn baby in Montreal is drawing attention to the poor legal protections in the country. Fortunately, in the most recent case, the baby will be protected under the law because he or she was born alive after the attack. Reports do not indicate the baby’s sex.

CBC reports the baby’s mother, Raja Ghazi, was between seven and eight months pregnant on Monday when she was stabbed – allegedly by her husband, Sofiane Ghazi, 37 – in the neighborhood of Montreal North. According to police, she was taken to the hospital where her baby was delivered by C-section. A few hours later, the baby died, the report states.

Because the baby was born alive, Sofiane Ghazi has been charged with first-degree murder of the child, as well as attempted murder of his wife and other charges, according to the report.

Here’s more from the report:

Under Canada’s Criminal Code, “a child becomes a human being … when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not (a) it has breathed; (b) it has an independent circulation; or (c) the navel string is severed.”

“So, if the child was alive, even for a moment, outside the child’s mother’s body, it would be considered a legal person such that you could be charged with murdering that child if the child didn’t survive,” said Toronto-based lawyer Daniel Brown, a specialist in criminal law.

The legal situation really comes down to abortion activists’ agenda; they readily admit that they do not want any rights to be given to babies before birth, no matter how far along in the womb they are and no matter whether their mother has them killed in an abortion or someone else commits violence against them and their mother.

Abortion is legal for any reason up until birth in Canada, and a fetal homicide law, like the ones most states have in America, could cause more Canadians to question these laws. Abortion activists do not want that.

Life News continues

British Columbia Teacher Fired for Having the Wrong Opinion

By Christie Blatchford
National Post

A teacher at a posh private school in British Columbia was fired last month after making an innocuous comment about abortion to his Grade 12 law class.

Though there is no way of knowing, since discipline matters are shrouded in secrecy, it may be the first time a Canadian teacher has been fired not amid allegations of impropriety, but for having the wrong opinion.

Certainly, Lori Foote, a spokesperson for the 60,000-member-strong Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, said Wednesday that no one at the association is “aware of anyone being fired” in Ontario in comparable circumstances.

The 44-year-old teacher, who has asked that he not be identified to protect what’s left of his career, was teaching “the criminal law unit, a lesson on vice, ethics, morality and the law” to his small class in the Vancouver-area school in late November.

“I was working my way through examples of how some people’s sense of personal ethics was more liberal than the letter of the law,” he said in an email. 

For example, he told them, many people might roll through a stop sign on a deserted country road, deeming it morally acceptable, even if unlawful.

Such is the cost of a small misstep in a crushingly politically correct world.

In other words, he said, in a pluralistic democracy, there’s often “a difference between people’s private morality and the law.

“I find abortion to be wrong,” he said, as another illustration of this gap, “but the law is often different from our personal opinions.”

That was it, the teacher said. “It was just a quick exemplar, nothing more. And we moved on.”

A little later, the class had a five-minute break, and when it resumed, several students didn’t return, among them a popular young woman who had gone to an administrator to complain that what the teacher said had “triggered” her such that she felt “unsafe” and that, in any case, he had no right to an opinion on the subject of abortion because he was a man.

Read more on how the school reached its decision