Assisted suicide law to include more vulnerable Canadians

By Sharon Dewey Hetke

PROPOSED CHANGES to Canada’s assisted suicide legislation will require a strong and renewed response from Anglican leaders. Bill C-7, set to be debated this Fall, removes key safeguards from the previous legislation that was passed in 2016, but struck down in September 2019 by a Quebec lower court. 

Since 2016, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) has been allowed in cases where death was “reasonably foreseeable.” A 10-day waiting period was mandated; and the person receiving MAID had to give final consent  immediately before death. Those two conditions have now been removed for those who are dying. 

In addition, a new stream would now be created, which allows MAID for those whose death is not reasonably foreseeable. The requirements of a waiting period and final consent would remain in place for this second stream. 

In an Oct. 8 National Post opinion piece titled “Proposed changes to MAID are pure madness,” four medical practitioners and professors point out: “Less than 30 per cent of Canadians have access to palliative care, and access to disability supports is limited in many areas…” and “psychiatric care can take months or even years to access.” They also note that gaps have been amplified by COVID-19 and conclude, “Expanding MAID to all chronically ill and disabled people is not the solution to the scandalous lack of adequate funding, skilled health-care professionals and public services in this country.”

Leaders across the religious spectrum are also speaking out: In an “Open Letter to All Canadians” titled “We Can and Must Do Much Better,” 50 leaders express their “strong concern and opposition to Bill C-7” and say “Offering euthanasia or assisted suicide to those living with a disability or chronic illness, but who are not dying, suggests that living with a disability or illness is a fate worse than death. This will create certain pressures to accept such lethal procedures, putting the lives of these Canadians at greater risk….”

The Letter also echoes the calls of many for increased resources for and access to palliative care as a more compassionate response. 

C-7 does prohibit the use of MAID for reasons of mental illness alone. However, many wonder how long even this safeguard will remain, particularly given the way the practice has evolved in Belgium and the Netherlands, which allow for assisted suicide on the basis of mental illness. The Dutch government is now in the process of expanding their regime to allow for euthanasia of children under 12. (There is already a Dutch agreement in place to allow for the euthanisation of infants.)

Further, what about someone who suffers from both mental illness and a chronic physical condition? Physical illness or disability (even if it doesn’t involve “reasonably foreseeable death”) would now make that person eligible for MAID. But might it in fact be the mental condition (depression, for example) that causes such a person to choose assisted suicide?

The Anglican Church of Canada has produced three documents addressing assisted suicide: “Care in Dying” in 2000, a Submission to the Special Joint Committee on Physician-Assisted Dying in 2016 and “In Sure and Certain Hope” in 2018. 

“Care in Dying” argued against the practice and even urges Anglicans not to “seek recourse to euthanasia and assisted suicide.” The 2016 Submission offers a probing reflection: “We wonder how it has become that the notion of dignity has come to be equated with the power to have authorship over one’s own life. In this shift, dignity is construed on the basis of certain qualities and capacities – an ideological equation that implies that those without full power of self-determination and autonomy over their own lives (bodies and minds) have lesser dignity than others.”

“In Sure and Certain Hope” is less pointed on the moral question and focuses more on how to offer pastoral care, given the legal reality of MAID. What one does not find in the 2018 document is an unequivocal rejection of assisted suicide. 

Further, “In Sure and Certain Hope” seems to understand pastoral care in ways that are at odds with the responsibility of a cleric to guard his or her flock against spiritual danger. (You can find the ACoC documents at www.anglican.ca/faith/focus/ethics/pad.)  

Canada is quickly moving into new territory, and many are concerned that the Anglican Church of Canada may be on the same trajectory as the current government (though a bit behind the curve). How will the Church respond to the latest expansions to MAID, if they become law?

Bp. Charlie Masters of the Anglican Network in Canada has said that the issue of assisted suicide is framed in a way that “favours the few who have politically powerful advocates and whose stories have been given high profile in the media; but it ignores the harm that may come to the many who are politically weak,  physically vulnerable, and have few if any advocates” (from a Feb. 2015 letter).

Bp. Joey Royal (Arctic Suffragan and a Communion Partners bishop) told TAP: “This is all a sad irony: on one hand, suicide is decried as an epidemic in Northern Canada, and there are repeated calls for more energy and resources to prevent it. On the other hand, suicide is being put forward – at the federal level anyway – as a valid option for sick people. The church has consistently upheld the sanctity of each human life, and we must continue to do so, while at the same time calling for better care for the dying and following our Lord by walking closely with those who suffer.”

Justice Minister David Lametti has said he hopes Bill C-7 will pass by Dec. 18, 2020. For more information on C-7 go to www.convivium.ca/articles/crescendo-of-critics-denounce-maid-legislation. For how your voice can be heard in Parliament, go to www.evangelicalfellowship.ca/euthanasia.  TAP