{"id":1668,"date":"2015-12-04T14:17:25","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T14:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tvndy.ca\/?p=1668\/"},"modified":"2018-11-07T01:12:02","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T01:12:02","slug":"webcast-archive-quebec-court-delays-implementation-of-euthanasia-in-quebec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2015\/12\/webcast-archive-quebec-court-delays-implementation-of-euthanasia-in-quebec\/","title":{"rendered":"Webcast archive: Qu\u00e9bec Superior Court delays implementation of euthanasia in Qu\u00e9bec"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1180\" height=\"664\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ChI1ngSI4QE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In this episode of <em>Euthanasia &amp; Disability<\/em>, Amy Hasbrouck and Christian Debray discuss:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Qu\u00e9bec court grants injunction delaying implementation of euthanasia in Qu\u00e9bec<\/li>\n<li>Five big lies about assisted suicide<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Please note that this text is only a script and that our webcast contains additional commentary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>QU\u00c9BEC SUPERIOR COURT GRANTS ORDER DELAYING IMPLEMENTATION OF EUTHANASIA LAW, QU\u00c9BEC APPEALS<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In a decision rendered\u00a0on December 1st, the Superior Court of Quebec calls the Qu\u00e9bec government to account for attempting to have &#8220;medical aid in dying&#8221; recognized as medical care whereas in practice, as the Court noted, it is euthanasia of human beings.<\/li>\n<li>Consequently, the court declared inoperative all the articles of the\u00a0<em>Act respecting end-of-life care\u00a0<\/em>(the &#8220;<em>Act<\/em>&#8220;) related to &#8220;medical aid in dying&#8221; that were to come into effect on December 10 until the federal criminal code sections (articles 14 and 241(b)) become invalid as ordered by the Supreme Court of Canada in the\u00a0<em>Carter<\/em>\u00a0decision.<\/li>\n<li>This is due to happen on February 6, 2016, but there is a strong possibility that the federal government will ask for, and the Supreme Court will grant, an extension, to give Parliament time to enact a new law.<\/li>\n<li>As the Superior Court said, &#8220;the fact of dressing up\u00a0<em>assisted suicide<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0euthanasia of a human being\u00a0with another name, a euphemism, namely\u00a0medical aid in dying, can not have the effect of automatically exempting the practice from the application of a federal law\u2026&#8221; (at para. 122).<\/li>\n<li>The Superior Court continues: &#8220;&#8230; to add the word\u00a0<em>medical<\/em>\u00a0to the term\u00a0<em>\u00a0aid in dying\u00a0<\/em>cannot by itself have the effect of sheltering provincial legislative provisions that are incompatible with federal legislation in criminal matters, a jurisdiction conferred exclusively to the federal Parliament by the Constitution.\u201d (at para. 139).<\/li>\n<li>This is the first court decision that corrects this manipulation of language that was devised by the Quebec government in order to shield its euthanasia program from federal criminal law.<\/li>\n<li>Thus, the Court agrees with the\u00a0Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice,\u00a0Living with Dignity, the\u00a0Physicians\u2019 Alliance against Euthanasia, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition\u00a0and the vast majority of palliative care doctors who have always stated publicly that &#8220;medical aid in dying&#8221; was a euphemism to legalize euthanasia.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Note<\/strong>: all quotations of the decision of the Quebec Superior Court are an unofficial translation of the original decision rendered in French.\u00a0 Thanks to Living with Dignity for permission to use portions of their blog entry in writing this update.\u00a0 Visit Living with Dignity\u2019s blog for a more detailed discussion of the decision, at <a href=\"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/\">vivredignite.org\/en<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>FIVE BIG LIES<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are some Big Lies that are repeated over and over again by advocates for assisted suicide and euthanasia (AS\/E).\u00a0 These would be mere annoyances but for the danger of people in vulnerable circumstances being induced to request AS\/E, resulting in death by public policy failure.<\/li>\n<li><em>Big Lie #1:\u00a0<\/em> \u201cThe study process was fair and balanced.\u201d\u00a0 Any commission which has the outcome as part of its name should be considered suspect.\u00a0 Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s commission on the question of dying with dignity knew its mandate before its first meeting, and the outcome was preordained. For example, an analysis of the testimony received by the Commission performed by the Qu\u00e9bec-based group Living with Dignity showed that a majority of witnesses opposed assisted suicide and euthanasia.\u00a0 Yet the final report claimed to have found global support for what it called \u201cmedical aid in dying.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><em>Big Lie #2:<\/em>\u00a0 \u201cMedical Aid in Dying.\u201d\u00a0 Advocacy groups promoted the term \u201cmedical aid in dying\u201d over physician assisted suicide or euthanasia based on focus group responses that said the term was more palatable.\u00a0 In going along, the media and politicians have fostered public confusion as to what \u201cmedical aid in dying\u201d means.\u00a0 During the 2013 debate on Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s euthanasia bill, an Ipsos poll showed that only 33% of Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois understood that \u201cmedical aid in dying\u201d meant a doctor giving a lethal injection, while 51% did not know it means taking action to end life.<\/li>\n<li><em>Big Lie #3:\u00a0<\/em> \u201cOnly religious people and conservatives oppose AS\/E.\u201d\u00a0 Advocacy groups have drawn a false dichotomy; those who support AS\/E are forward-thinking progressives, while those who oppose it are political conservatives or religious fanatics.\u00a0 This view leaves out the people who are most directly affected by the legalization of AS\/E, who have also been among the most stalwart opponents; people with disabilities.\u00a0All of the major disability rights groups in North America and the Commonwealth countries strongly oppose AS\/E as fundamentally discriminatory.\u00a0 The analysis of the disability movement is based on the socio-economic and political status of elders and people who are diagnosed with degenerative diseases and disabilities.\u00a0 Disability onset means a sudden loss of access and status in our society.\u00a0 Despite the glowing rhetoric of our laws and conventions, the failure to enforce these rights show that disabled people continue to be devalued, segregated, impoverished and ignored.<\/li>\n<li><em>Big Lie #4:<\/em>\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not about disabled people.\u201d\u00a0 The legalization of AS\/E presupposes that life with a disability is a fate worse than death, which it is not.\u00a0 The most common reasons cited by those seeking assisted suicide in jurisdictions where it is legal relate to living with a disability in a discriminatory society.\u00a0 Most such laws either implicitly or explicitly apply to people with disabilities, yet supporters pooh-pooh the concerns of disability advocates who point out that nearly everyone who receives AS\/E has a physical or mental disability (whether or not they also have a terminal illness).<\/li>\n<li><em>Big Lie #5:<\/em>\u00a0 \u201cThere is no slippery slope.\u201d\u00a0 Even the court in the Carter case acknowledged that the widening eligibility criteria (children, people with mental illness and those who are \u201ctired of life\u201d) and easing of oversight in jurisdictions where AS\/E are legal might be a problem.\u00a0 However instead of \u201ccarefully crafting\u201d a regulatory scheme to prevent AS\/E from posing a danger to people in vulnerable circumstances, politicians and commentators are imposing deadlines and calling for fast-track implementation of the policy.<\/li>\n<li>The result is a medical community that doesn\u2019t know what to do, a public that doesn\u2019t know its rights, and a non-existent system geared to trap people and their doctors in a maze with only one exit marked \u201ceuthanasia.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>And a bonus Big Lie: Killing is care.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n   ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\n<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nToday, we discuss the court-ordered delay of Quebec&#8217;s euthanasia program.\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2015\/12\/webcast-archive-quebec-court-delays-implementation-of-euthanasia-in-quebec\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Webcast archive: Qu\u00e9bec Superior Court delays implementation of euthanasia in Qu\u00e9bec&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2015\/12\/webcast-archive-quebec-court-delays-implementation-of-euthanasia-in-quebec\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Webcast archive: Qu\u00e9bec Superior Court delays implementation of euthanasia in Qu\u00e9bec&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[269,121,40,370,118],"class_list":["post-1668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-webcast-archive","tag-carter","tag-euthanasia-disability","tag-quebec","tag-superior-court","tag-webcast","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1668"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3752,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668\/revisions\/3752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}