“The hour is extremely serious,” said COLF executive director Michele Boulva in a statement released Oct. 28. “This is a question of life and death. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we cannot remain indifferent.
“We must reach out to our family, parish, social and professional networks to discuss these pressing issues and share our Catholic perspective,” she said. “Today, the Lord is counting on each one of us, as full-fledged citizens, to defend life by intervening actively in the social debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide.”
EPC executive director Alex Schadenberg sent out an Oct. 28 e-mail to supporters, calling Bill-52 “a very dangerous euthanasia bill.”
If the bill passes the vote in Quebec's National Assembly, it will go on to committee for further study.
Schadenberg urged supporters to write Justice Minister Peter MacKay asking him to “uphold our federal law that equally protects all Canadians from euthanasia and assisted suicide.”
“Euthanasia threatens the lives of people at the most vulnerable time of their life,” he said.
The call comes on the heels of a new poll commissioned by LifeCanada that shows most Quebeckers do not favour the bill's provisions for so-called "medical aid in dying."
The Abington Research poll of 500 residents Oct. 23-28, commissioned by LifeCanada, a national pro-life education organization, shows 47 per cent say the bill needs further study while 14 per cent were opposed. Only 35 per cent were in favour.
The poll exposed problems with the wording "medical aid in dying.” Before these words were defined, only 30 per cent understood the words involve “a doctor giving a patient a lethal injection,” said an Oct. 28 LifeCanada news release.
After respondents were told Bill-52 is based on a Belgian law and that a study showed one-third of those given lethal injections were killed without their consent, 83 per cent “expressed concern” this “might happen in Quebec,” the release said.
“This poll shows the Quebec population has not given its informed consent to medical aid in dying,” said LifeCanada executive director Natalie Sonnen. “Contrary to what may have been assumed, the people have not given the government a mandate to proceed with such a monumental change in medical practice. The representatives of the people should reconsider before they take this step.
“Once people understand and think about the implications of medical aid in dying they back away from supporting Bill-52,” she said.
LifeCanada and the Christian Medical and Dental Association of Canada were among seven organizations the National Assembly’s Committee on Health and Social Services refused to hear as they conducted public hearings on the bill.
The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada (IMFC) released a study showing the effect of legalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide in the jurisdictions that have done so. Among the study’s findings: assisted suicide deaths have doubled in Oregon since 2005; in Washington, the number of assisted suicide deaths have grown by 130 per cent; and in the Netherlands, deaths by euthanasia increased by 64 per cent between 2005 and 2010.
“International evidence is damning,” concludes the IMFC. “Where euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal, it is quite clear that rules around who can participate and why are moot. This is because ‘exceptional circumstances’ are subjective — based on an individual’s perception.
“The end effect of laws legalizing euthanasia/assisted suicide are to entirely ignore the risks to those who are vulnerable and/or susceptible to coercion, as long as they self-define their suffering as unbearable. This is not compassionate. There are no second chances once euthanasia is perceived as the ‘best treatment.’ ”