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Charles Lewis (right) speaks with one of the event organizers prior to delivering his lecture on euthanasia and the dangers of making it legal. He told about 40 people at Kintore College that legalizing euthanasia in Quebec isn’t a slippery slope, it is the Ice Capades. Photo by Evan Boudreau.

Better health care, not euthanasia

By 
  • April 4, 2014

TORONTOHelping his cancer-stricken mother reach a natural death three years ago proved to be a life-changing experiences for Leo Ufimtsev.

The third-year computer science student at the Univer-sity of Toronto devoted a year to caring for his mother — doing everything from cleaning her house and preparing meals to helping his mother with her personal hygiene. As the cancer strengthened its grip on his mom, Ufimtsev said his life had no direction.

“It was a wake-up shock for me,” he said.

“She passed away right in front of me in my arms. In some way, caring for someone who is dying is an experience that sort of changes you deeply. If you learn to care for others you often find a new side of life that you’ve not seen before.”

It was seeing that side of life that turned Ufimtsev completely against euthanasia and made him particularly opposed to Quebec’s Bill-52, legislation to legalize eu-thanasia that died when Quebec’s election was called last month. The Parti Québécois has indicated it will bring the legislation back if it wins the April 7 election.

“If you allow euthanasia on adults ... that would be one of the worst things you could do,” said Ufimtsev.

Ufimtsev says that after caring for his mother and then witness-ing her death, “I woke up.”

“Up until that point I was just kind of drifting doing nothing at all,” said the 25-year-old from Russia. “I was just lazy all day wasting my time as much as I could.”

He applied for university, got a study visa in Canada and began speaking out against euthanasia, but not without facing resistance.

“I often speak with my friends in regards to euthanasia and one of the arguments that I usually get told is that it is their choice, they should decide for themselves and when people tell me that I am stumped.”

That’s why Ufimtsev decided to attend an evening lecture co-hosted by Ryerson Catholics. The talk was given by former National Post religion writer Charles Lewis, who volunteered his time to address students at Kintore College.

“Euthanasia is like bed bugs, it is almost impossible to get rid of it once it is there,” Lewis told about 40 people who attended the March 26 lecture.

“I use bed bugs purposely because I find it so offensive and so grotesque and so disgusting that I don’t even want to try to pretend that I can see the other side.”

He continued by saying that people, not just Catholics, need to speak out against attempts to legalize euthanasia in Quebec by writing letters to politicians, newspaper columnists and Church leaders.

“Making it legal is in fact ... going to change our culture to one where the hastening of death is more important than the com-forting and caring of the sick.”

Lewis said about 75 per cent of Canadians are in favour of eutha-nasia. He urged the young people to find the courage to speak out.

“People are going to mock you and make fun of you, but we already know what Jesus said for those of us who speak in His name,” Lewis said.

“You’ve got to step up and not just do it for us the Church but you have to do it for the better of society. We are talking about saving lives, we are not just talking about saving Catholic lives.”

In the case of Ufimtsev, Lewis was preaching to the converted.

“One would think that it is the worst thing, caring for someone who is sick, that it is just wasting your time,” he said.

“But that is not the case. By caring for someone else you sort of discover that life is very short and limited. Instead of depriving people of such experiences we should focus on improving health care.”

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