Don't Be Deceived

NZ Contemplates The Killing Fields

MP David Seymour has proposed a Bill to authorize euthanasia in New Zealand.  It appears to face substantial opposition, but the proponents are cunning indeed.  They are in the middle of trying all kinds of tricks to misdirect their opponents.  Central to this effort is the claim that, if euthanasia becomes legal in New Zealand, it will be restricted to just a few kinds of extreme circumstances.  Their assurances ring hollow.

One plank of their edifice has been to point to Canada as an example of very carefully restricted killing.  Canada shows that a carefully written euthanasia law can restrict the application of killing to just a few, extreme cases.  Except that it doesn't.  Canada is fast becoming another Land of the Killing Fields.

Here is a piece in the NZ Herald from Dr Sinead Donnelly exposing the Canadian myth.

Canada's Euthanasia Law Authorises Far More Killing Than Claimed
As the time approaches for Parliament's Justice Committee to report back on David Seymour's euthanasia and assisted suicide bill, it is timely to carefully review the impact of legalisation in countries like Canada, often cited by Seymour as exemplary.

Seven Canadian doctors published a 2018 World Medical Journal article, "Euthanasia in Canada: a cautionary tale", endorsed by 57 other Canadian doctors. They wrote, "As Canadians, we are saddened by this situation, but we hope that our experience and observations will serve as a warning for our colleagues in other countries, and their patients".

The Canadian law allows for killing patients when they consent.  At first glance it appears very restrictive, applicable only in the most severe cases of human suffering.  When such cases emerge then killing the patient is acceptable, provided the patient agrees.  But the fishy thing about "human rights" arguments is that they resemble the slippery eel.
  The Canadian law recognizes a patient's right to die.  And human "rights" arguments have ways of morphing into something entirely different.  Human rights, by definition, cannot be considered or regarded as exceptional.  Human rights are universal. 

The Canadian Supreme Court ruled in Carter v. Canada (2015) that physicians may provide euthanasia or assisted suicide (EAS) to competent adults who clearly consent, who have a grievous and irremediable medical condition (including illness, disease, or disability) that causes enduring and intolerable physical or psychological suffering, and that cannot be relieved by means acceptable to the individual.

The Canadian law's sponsor claimed that EAS would remain "very exceptional". However, the law also said "qualified patients had a right to euthanasia, and the exercise of a right cannot be exceptional".

Within a year of the ruling, pressure for "Carter Plus" became so great that the federal Government legally committed to considering EAS for adolescents and children, for mental illness alone, and by advance directive (for those who lack capacity, like dementia patients). Two and a half years after legalisation, strong lobbies are intensifying their push towards expanding euthanasia as a response to those cases.

Here is how it has gone so far.  Canada has killed off an elderly couple who wishes to die together.  And this is the tip of the iceberg.

Other disturbing stories emerge. A 25-year-old disabled woman in acute crisis in an emergency ward was pressured to consider assisted suicide by an attending physician, who called her mother "selfish" for protecting her. Hospital authorities denied a chronically ill, severely disabled patient the care he needed, suggesting euthanasia or assisted suicide instead.

When the Quebec euthanasia law was being instituted, some Quebec emergency physicians, for a time, were letting suicide victims die even though they could have saved their lives. The president of the Association of Quebec Emergency Physicians stated that the law and accompanying publicity may have "confused" the physicians about their role.

Quebec physicians and health care practitioners now work in environments characterised by an emphasis on euthanasia as a purported "right". The onus is increasingly on physicians to show why euthanasia should be refused, with health care administrators more anxious about being accused of "obstructing access" than about "killing people who really ought not to be killed". This is the reality of a supposedly carefully designed system.

As we consider this being rolled out in NZ, our response must be, "No!"  The last thing we want and need in our country is another vista of killing fields.  That is what has resulted in Canada.  Seymour's protestations to the contrary and his assurances that "it won't happen here" are an empty, desiccated jar. 

The Canadian law has created confusion about what patient's lives are worth living and what lives aren't. This is directly, negatively affecting medical care. Canada has abandoned one of the most important aspects of patient-centred care.

As Professor Margaret Somerville explains: "The informing philosophies of euthanasia and palliative care are in conflict. Palliative care is based on a commitment to help people to live as fully as possible until they die a natural death. The informing principle of euthanasia is that it is ethical to intentionally inflict death to relieve suffering or even the fear of future suffering."

Legalized killing fields are just one more manifestation of the proverb, "he who fails to find me injures himself;  all who hate me love death.” (Proverbs 8:36)  Proponents of  Seymour's bill, despite all their protestations to the contrary, cannot control or prevent the outcomes which are now starting to ravage Canada.