Quebec considers allowing doctors to euthanize dementia patients without their active consent – Lifesite

QUEBEC CITY, December 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) The Quebec government is opening public consultations on allowing doctors toeuthanize sick people with Alzheimers, dementia, and other degenerative diseases who are no longer able togive their consent.

Coalition Avenir Qubecs Health minister Danielle McCann announced at a press conference last week that all parties support consultations on the recommendations of an expert panel that spent 18 months studying the issue of prior consent, reported the Montreal Gazette.

The panel recommended that individuals who received a diagnosis of a serious and incurable illness, including Alzheimers or dementia, can give an advance directive to be killed at some future time when they are no longer competent to consent.

It also recommended authorizing a third party to inform physicians of the existence of a prior consent in the event a person loses their faculties. The third party authorization would be kept in a government registry as a permanent record, the Gazette reported.

Quebecs current euthanasia law specifies that Quebecers cannot be euthanized unless they fulfill all the following criteria: They are at least 18 years of age; suffer from a serious, incurable illness; are in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability; experience constant and unbearable physical or psychological suffering that cannot be relieved in a way they deem tolerable; are at the end of life; and can give informed consent.

We dedicate this announcement to all those Quebecers living with serious and incurable illnesses and who are saddled with persistent and intolerable suffering, McCann said at the conference.

We are giving them the power and the freedom to decide and we do this while respecting their will, values and dignity, she added.

But Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, warned that advance directives means people will be killed against their will.

This is absolutely crazy, because it will allow euthanasia of someone who may never have wanted it, who might have in fear in an earlier state felt this was what they wanted, and when the time comes, they lose their right to change their mind, he told LifeSiteNews.

The euthanasia lobbyists say its all about freedom of choice and autonomy, thats how they sell it. But once you become incompetent, you wont have a right to change your mind, and this becomes the problem, added Schadenberg.

Schadenberg's concerns are echoed by Quebec anti-euthanasia group Vivre dans la Dignit.

Quebecs current law requires that people be allowed to change their minds until the last moment, it said in a press release rejecting the panels recommendations.

A new incapacity implies that we can no longer respond to this demand, often to the displeasure of relatives, the Vivre dans la Dignit statement said.

But this principle of consent to the end is paramount, it stressed. Remember that it makes the difference between execution and euthanasia.

Indeed, advance directives led to the horror of a 74-year-old Dutch woman being forcibly euthanized in 2016, Schadenberg pointed out.

The woman had been diagnosed with Alzheimers four years earlier, and wrote a statement saying she wanted to be euthanized before entering a care home, but added: I want to be able to decide (when to die) while still in my senses and when I think the time is right, according to the BBC.

Deciding the time was right, a doctor slipped a sedative into her coffee, but the woman came to and began struggling. The doctor then told relatives to hold her down while lethally injecting her.

She didnt want to die, but they did it anyway. This is exactly what theyre talking about allowing in Quebec, Schadenberg told LifeSiteNews.

Moreover, a court in The Hague exonerated the doctor September 11, 2019.The judges ruled the physician acted in the patients best interests, and that not euthanizing the woman would have undermined her wishes, the BBC reported.

The same day as the Dutch ruling, a Quebec judge struck down as unconstitutional the requirement that an individual must be near death to be legally euthanized.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Christine Baudouins ruling quashed both the federal Bill C-14 eligibility requirement that an individuals death be reasonably foreseeable, and Quebecs end of life requirement.

Baudoin gave both governments six months to revise their legislation, but Quebec opted not to appeal the judgment.

Moreover, Trudeau said during the election campaign that if re-elected, his government would act on Baudouins decision.

And the federal Liberals are also talking about having consultations on advance directives, Schadenberg told LifeSiteNews.

The euthanasia lobby is pushing for that, he said. So the question is, whos going to get it done first, the federal government or the Quebec government?

Quebec, he noted in a recent blog, has its share of problems with euthanasia.

Between Dec. 10, 2015, and March 31, 2018, 1,664 people were euthanized in the province. Between April 1, 2018, and March 31, 2019, there were 1331 reported euthanasia deaths according to the most recent provincial euthanasia report, Schadenberg wrote.

Thirteenof the reported deaths did not fit the criteria of the law and three of the euthanasia deaths were for hip fractures.

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Quebec considers allowing doctors to euthanize dementia patients without their active consent - Lifesite