Euthanasia has been a top priority issue for ARPA Canada over the past few years.
- 2015: ARPA intervened in Carter v. Canada, the landmark Supreme Court case which struck down the prohibition on assisted suicide.
- 2015: ARPA produced a paper showing the government that their legislative options included affirming a total ban of euthanasia.
- 2015: ARPA engaged in direct lobbying on Bill C-14, which amended the Criminal Code to legalize physician-assisted suicide. The Hill Times recorded ARPA Canada as having the top number of Parliamentary lobby meetings on this issue in December 2015.
- 2016: ARPA Canada presented to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice, urging Parliament to protect all human life from the dangers of legalized assisted suicide.
- 2016-2017: ARPA created the video documentary series Ending Suffering: The Palliative Care Alternative
- 2018: ARPA updated its policy report on Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia
- 2019: ARPA Canada applied for, and was granted, intervener status in the Lamb case.
The movement to bring euthanasia and assisted suicide to Canada has been ongoing for decades. Despite the official legalization of physician-assisted suicide in June 2016, the movement wants more. While Parliament considers a 2018 report on expanding euthanasia, euthanasia advocates are pushing the boundaries of assisted suicide in a legal challenge in the British Columbia courts.
ARPA Canada was an intervenor at the Supreme Court of Canada in the Carter case that ended the previous ban on euthanasia in Canada. We, and many other human rights advocates, pointed out that once the door is open to allowing some people to kill other people, there is no logical justification to stop it from spreading to less and less “extreme” cases.
Knowing this open door would lead to a further push, we were not surprised to hear of an immediate challenge to the restrictions on euthanasia. Ms. Julia Lamb and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) launched their challenge to Canada’s new assisted suicide legislation mere days after it was passed in 2016. Julia Lamb has spinal muscular atrophy, a progressive neurodegenerative disease, but she is not eligible for assisted suicide because her death is not “reasonably foreseeable,” as required by the current law.
The BCCLA asserts on Lamb’s behalf that “the federal government’s new bill leaves many seriously ill Canadians, like Julia, behind.” The BCCLA’s narrative is that the Supreme Court gave Canadians a “right to die”, which Parliament undermined by adding criteria to the assisted suicide law that the Supreme Court had not mentioned in their Carter ruling. Ms. Lamb argues that by “leaving her behind”, in other words, by delaying her death, this law violates the Charter.
The government is defending the law by pointing out that the Supreme Court decision only declared that a complete prohibition on assisted suicide violated Charter rights. The Supreme Court decision in the Carter case applied to the particular people in that specific case. The court did not, nor could they, prescribe how this would work out for all of Canada. That job was up to Parliament, as the court itself made clear, and so the euthanasia law we now have came about in 2016.
ARPA Canada decided to apply to intervene in the Lamb case, alongside Anchor Canadian Reformed Association for the Handicapped and Bethesda Christian Association. Our application was filed in December 2018 and heard on January 14th, 2019. We are thankful to report that ARPA has been granted intervenor status in this case! This means we will argue, alongside the government, against the expansion of euthanasia in Canada.
Along with the Anchor and Bethesda Associations, ARPA Canada will argue that our laws are passed based on moral judgments by Parliament. These judgments rightly include recognizing and protecting the inherent worth of all individuals. An expansion of euthanasia would further undermine the value of life and erode protections for vulnerable people. Any constitutional determinations on the current law need to be made with those moral judgments in mind.
The evidence in the Lamb case will be filed with the court over the next six months. In August, ARPA and other intervenors will appear before the judge to explain what our particular arguments will be in light of the evidence filed. The judge will then decide the length of written and oral argument we will be able to give at the actual trial. The trial is scheduled to start in mid-November 2019.
It is interesting to be in this position of arguing alongside the government in defense of a law we do not support. We must be clear that, while we do not support the law in principle (euthanasia is morally wrong, and it should not be legal in Canada), we are limited to a particular legal question in this court case: should euthanasia be expanded by the courts in Canada? We argue with the government, a firm “No!” It is important that we continue to speak up for the inherent value of human life, and hold back attempts to advance euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada. We appreciate your prayers as we review evidence, develop arguments, and keep our focus on speaking up for life as created by God, in His image, and lived in His timing.
This fall, Parliament will examine the issue of expanding euthanasia to “mature minors” and to persons with mental illness.
Since 2016 (Bill C-14), Canada has permitted anyone who is at least 18, has a grievous and irremediable medical condition, and whose death is reasonably foreseeable, to receive “medical aid in dying” (MAiD). To put it in stark terms, the law now permits medical professionals to kill their adult patients, as long as the patient consents and has the requisite medical conditions.
In Spring 2015, ARPA released its first Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia report, which offered advice to Parliamentarians on responding to the Carter decision. That report was released prior to Bill C-14 (2016). The bill was not as permissive as we feared it might be, but also not nearly as restrictive as we hoped.
ARPA’s 2015 Report focused on properly understanding and responding to the Carter decision. Now, with Canada growing accustomed to euthanasia and amid demands for its expansion, ARPA is releasing a new Report. It articulates and defends the same basic principles: the sanctity of life, the wrong of deliberate killing, and the good of compassionate caring.
Our new Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide Policy Report (Fall 2018) focuses on the shortfalls of Bill C-14 and anticipates new challenges on the horizon. We reiterate, again, the possibility and propriety of prohibiting euthanasia. But we also offer recommendations for incrementally improving the regime created by Bill C-14.
The current law is vague, granting physicians far too much discretion. For example, the standard that a person’s death be “reasonably foreseeable” is terribly imprecise and its interpretation varies from doctor to doctor.
In every jurisdiction that has legalized MAiD, euthanasia and assisted suicide deaths steadily rise. And the rules are interpreted with increasing flexibility over time by doctors, law enforcement, and judges.
Apart from recommending a new, constitutionally compliant prohibition on MAiD, founded on the objective of guarding the sanctity of life, ARPA urges the government to improve the current law by resolving ambiguity and to establishing robust procedural safeguards.
There is a serious push in Canada to expand MAiD in the near future. We must therefore remain persistent in advocating for policy that recognizes the sanctity of God-given life. We must be thoughtful and compassionate when defending the sanctity of human life. We defend this sanctity not only by opposing the killing of the very sick, but by loving them and those near and dear to them.
Please use ARPA’s new report as a personal and community resource for political advocacy. We invite you to write to and speak to your MP on this issue. For many of you, it will not be the first time. May we encourage you with Galatians 6:9, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”
Take Action: Send an EasyMail letter to share your concerns with your MP and MPP
When the Supreme Court of Canada legalized assisted suicide in Carter (2015), it allayed concerns about abuse by quoting the words of the trial judge, who said the risks of legalized assisted suicide can be minimized (not eliminated) through a “carefully designed system that imposes strict limits that are scrupulously monitored and enforced.” Put another way, only through a carefully designed system that is “scrupulously monitored and enforced” can the inherent risks of a legalized assisted suicide regime be minimized. Failure to scrupulously monitor the performance of MAID arguably violates the Charter right to life (section 7) by robbing the severely sick or disabled of the equal benefit and protection of the law (section 15).
There is a very real risk that vulnerable people could be victimized by a system that permits deliberately ending the lives of the severely sick or disabled. To lessen this risk, scrupulous monitoring is required. Since Bill C-14 was passed in June (2016), assisted suicide and euthanasia have been permitted and performed without reporting or monitoring. Physicians and nurse practitioners who deliberately end someone’s life need not report it to anyone. Pharmacists who dispense the life-ending drug need not report it either.
Federal law does not (yet) require any reporting
Bill C-14 says that the Minister of Health “must make regulations that he or she considers necessary respecting the provision and collection, for the purpose of monitoring medical assistance in dying, of information relating to requests for, and the provision of, medical assistance in dying…” There are several problems here, however.
First, the phrase “must make regulations that he or she considers necessary” is ambiguous. We do not find this phrase in any other statute. Must the Minister make regulations if the Minister considers them unnecessary? Second, the Minister can exempt a class of persons including physicians, nurse practitioners, or pharmacists from the regulations as he or she sees fit. Third, this part of Bill C-14 does not come into effect until June 17, 2017, meaning that Parliament has been permitting assisted suicide and euthanasia without monitoring it and will likely continue to do so for several months at least.
There are two ways to redress this problem. First, the Criminal Code could be amended so as to set out reporting requirements directly, rather than leaving them to the Minister’s discretion. No physician, nurse practitioner, or pharmacist who participates in “MAID” should be exempt. Second, Canadians should demand that the Minister of Health implement adequate regulations as soon as the reporting provisions of Bill C-14 come into force.
Provinces can also require reporting
The Ontario government recently tabled Bill 84, which would require physicians and nurse practitioners to give notice to the coroner whenever “medical assistance in dying” (MAID) is provided. The Ontario government is right to require physicians to report each and every “medically assisted” death to the coroner and we commend this initiative. However, Bill 84 does not set out the content of the notice to be given to the coroner. The coroner should be able to determine from the notice, at a minimum, some basic information about the circumstances and the cause of the person’s death. Accordingly, ARPA spelled out its recommendations in a written submission to the committee reviewing Bill 84 this week.
Only the federal government can draw the line between culpable homicide or culpable assistance in suicide on one side and permissible MAID on the other. Provincial governments, however, can play a role in monitoring the provision of a provincially funded service by provincially licensed physicians and nurse practitioners, often in provincially licensed facilities, particularly where the criminal law is silent, as it is in this context.
Remind your elected representatives about the importance of reporting
“Dying With Dignity”, a pro-euthanasia lobby group, is actively opposing the requirement to notify the coroner, calling it “stigmatizing”. It is remarkable how unconcerned some activists are with safety and accountability, unlike the Court that actually legalized “MAID” (in limited circumstances) in the first place. We must remind MPs and MPPs of the dangers of legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia and of the necessity of “scrupulous monitoring and enforcement” so that: 1. the risk to vulnerable Canadians would be lessened, and 2. the government can be held accountable for permitting and funding euthanasia.
Ontarians, send an EasyMail to your MPP:
ONTARIO MUST MONITOR “MEDICALLY ASSISTED DEATH”
Canadians (Ontarians too!), send an EasyMail to your MP:
CANADA MUST MONITOR ASSISTED SUICIDE / EUTHANASIA
ARPA Canada was able to present to the Panel on Options for a Legislative Response to Carter v. Canada. ARPA’s legal counsel André Schutten and policy analyst Colin Postma were joined by lawyer John Sikkema. They presented three options: draft legislation using Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the “notwithstanding clause”), some recommendations on mitigating the harm of assisted suicide, and ARPA Canada’s ‘third option’ of amending the Criminal Code to specifically address assisted suicide and euthanasia.
André Schutten began his presentation with a story of a close relative who has been in a wheelchair most of his life, who has been in and out of the hospital many times. During such hospital stays, his family has been asked, “is it worth it?” by some in the health care profession. If this kind of pressure exists to undermine the value of life for those with disabilities before any Parliamentary action on Carter, how much more afterwards. Those with disabilities will be forced to prove their worth to society, or be shamed and undervalued, Schutten said. He then presented ARPA’s draft law for using Section 33 of the Charter, the so-called ‘notwithstanding clause’ and advised the panel that it is ARPA’s position that this is the best legislative option for protecting the value of life for the most vulnerable.
Important Update: After publishing this article, the authors regretted what was written and penned the following letter to the editor:
The following article was written for the Clarion magazine in response to the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling in Carter v. Canada.
By Mark Penninga & André Schutten
On February 6, Canada’s Supreme Court released a decision which struck down Canada’s laws against physician-assisted suicide. It required that physician-assisted suicide be permitted for competent adults who clearly consent to their own death and have an irremediable medical condition that causes enduring and intolerable suffering. That may sound like strict parameters, but the reality is that these qualifications are subjective and tens of thousands of people could qualify today. Parliament has been given just one year to come up with a law to regulate this new paradigm before the judgment takes effect.
We have every reason to be concerned about this decision and the growing idolatry of self in Canada. At the same time, we find our enduring strength in God, the Foundation that does not crumble when times become difficult. God calls His children to faithfully uphold His Word and Truth regardless of how much our society spurns it. More than ever, the light of the Gospel will stand out in a land that is increasingly darkening.
The following questions and answers are meant to offer guidance, direction, and even some hope in response to this latest legal development on this issue. We welcome interaction and further questions, either directly to us or via letters to the editor.
This morning the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a disappointing decision in the euthanasia case. The constitutional challenge launched by Gloria Taylor and Lee Carter and supported by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) against Canada’s criminal prohibitions of assisted suicide and euthanasia was heard by Canada’s top court on October 15. Less than four months later, the court unanimously decided to strike down the prohibition on physician assisted-suicide, giving Parliament 12 months to legislate restrictions if it so chooses. Here follow some initial reflections on the judgment. (You can read the actual judgment yourself here.)
Reasons for overturning earlier precedent
In 1993, the Supreme Court ruled on the same issues in a case called Rodriguez, ruling in favour of an absolute ban on assisted suicide. If the law is already settled, then why did the Court hear this case again, and overrule their earlier decision?
The reasoning for overturning Rodriguez is two-fold:
- First, “the law relating to the principles of overbreadth and gross disproportionality had materially advanced since Rodriguez” (para. 46); and
- Second, “The matrix of legislative and social facts in this case also differed from the evidence before the Court in Rodriguez… The evidence before the trial judge in this case contained evidence that, if accepted, was capable of undermining each of these conclusions [three factual findings of the Court in Rodriguez].” (para. 47).
Basically, the Court felt that the law and the facts changed since Rodriguez, and so the Court felt they were free to overturn the earlier decision.
For immediate release from the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada
February 6, 2015
EUTHANASIA SUPREME COURT DECISION: A SACRED LINE HAS BEEN CROSSED
OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in Lee Carter, et al., v. Attorney General of Canada, et al., this morning, striking down Canada’s laws against assisted suicide and signaling Parliament to create new, permissive legislation if it so desires. The unanimous decision of the Court declared that section 241(b) and s. 14 of the Criminal Code unjustifiably infringe section 7 of the Charter and are of no force or effect to the extent that they prohibit physician-assisted death for a competent adult person who (1) clearly consents to the termination of life and (2) has a grievous and irremediable medical condition that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of his or her condition. The declaration of invalidity is suspended for 12 months to give Parliament time to respond. The court has left the door open to Parliament to make the new legislation restrictive.
The Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada was an intervenor in the case and made written arguments to the Court last fall to defend the inviolability of human life.
Mark Penninga, Executive Director of ARPA Canada, made the following comments:
- “A sacred line has been crossed. This decision turns the right to life from something that is objectively fixed and inviolable to something that is subjectively fluid and based on what someone feels it is worth.”
- “It will be logically impossible for Parliament or any legislature or court to enact safeguards that will be able to withstand future legal challenges. As we see in Belgium and the Netherlands, it is only a matter of time before these so-called safeguards are considered an unjust limitation on someone else’s rights, even allowing children or those who are depressed to be killed at the hands of the state.”
- “With this decision, autonomous choices have been raised as a higher value than life itself. This will have devastating consequences on the value of human life, especially for the most vulnerable in society.” (more…)