Responding to Canada's MAiD crisis

Following are links to resource and some ideas about how opponents of legalized euthanasia in Canada can respond to the country's MAiD crisis. GET INVOLVED Federal political Support Conservative MP Tamara Jansen’s private member’s bill, C-218, to prevent euthanasia for mental illness, by excluding mental illness from being considered a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” for the purposes of MAiD. Learn more: https://bccatholic.ca/news/canada/mps-debate-mental-illness-for-maid-as-jansen-s-bill-reaches-second-reading Support Garnet Genuis’s private member’s bill, C-260, to that would ban a government bureaucrat in a position of authority from proposing MAID to a person who is not asking for it, on the grounds that initiating such a discussion is coercive. Learn more: https://bccatholic.ca/news/canada/catholic-bishops-join-mps-in-push-to-restrict-maid Oppose Health Canada’s “Model Standard Practice for MAiD,” which recommends that, when certain conditions are met, doctors must initiate a discussion about MAiD. Learn more: https://bccatholic.ca/news/catholic-van/doctors-alarmed-by-health-canada-s-push-for-maid-talks-with-patients Support a call for a full review of Canada’s permissive MAiD law. Learn more: https://bccatholic.ca/news/canada/pro-life-coalition-calls-for-full-review-of-canada-s-maid-law-amid-growing-concerns-over-abuse Let your member of Parliament know that you oppose allowing advance requests for MAiD. Learn more: https://bccatholic.ca/news/catholic-van/health-canada-trying-to-manufacture-consent-for-maid-expansion-b-c-pro-life-leader-says Inform elected officials about your opposition to extending MAiD to so-called mature minors. Learn more: https://carenotkilling.org.uk/articles/canada-yes-to-minors-mental-illnesses-on-hold/ Oppose Quebec physicians’ call for legal infanticide. Learn more: https://www.catholicregister.org/item/3170-canada-creeps-ever-closer-to-baby-m-ai-d General government Support better programs and funding for the disabled, for whom MAiD is often easier to access than proper support: https://bccatholic.ca/news/catholic-van/pro-life-voices-laud-un-report-saying-canada-s-euthanasia-law-discriminates-toward-disabled Call for better palliative care in hospitals and hospices, which critics say is being undermined by MAiD. Learn more: https://bccatholic.ca/news/catholic-van/assisted-suicide-a-cancer-that-s-destroying-authentic-palliative-care-expert BC provincial government Ask your MLA to lift the veil of secrecy over the provincial government MAiD oversight unit. Learn more: https://bccatholic.ca/news/catholic-van/provincial-maid-regime-high-on-errors-lax-on-enforcement-and-reluctant-to-do-anything-about-it-b-c-catholic-investigation-finds Community and Parish Support or help form a community or parish group that works to combat the sick and elderly’s loneliness, which may be a prime reason for wanting MAiD. Learn more: https://bccatholic.ca/news/catholic-van/culture-of-loneliness-meets-culture-of-death-in-maid-epidemic-speaker Resources The Archdiocese of Edmonton’s “Hope & Dignity: A Catholic Response to Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide” resource: https://hopeanddignity.caedm.ca/ Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishop’s resources on suffering and end of life, including the Horizons of Hope toolkit on palliative care: https://www.cccb.ca/faith-moral-issues/suffering-and-end-of-life/ Canadian Physicians for Life: https://www.physiciansforlife.ca/ Christian Medical and Dental Association of Canada: https://cmdacanada.org/issues/euthanasiapas/ The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition: https://epcc.ca/ Delta Hospice Association: https://deltahospicesociety.org/ Life Canada: https://lifecanada.org/ The de Veber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research’s “Echoes: Palliative Care Stories of Canada” https://echoescanada.com/ Elevator pitches to counter MAiD WHAT IS YOUR 'ELEVATOR PITCH' FOR LIFE? Increasingly these days, Catholics are being called to defend their opposition to legalized euthanasia. Because religious responses usually get little traction, the B.C. Catholic asked a variety of commentators to formulate a secular “elevator pitch” that could be used by other Catholics in response to the usual “personal-autonomy” and “solution-to-suffering” reasons cited in support of Medical Assistance in Dying. Here are those responses: Death is not the solution to suffering. Quite simply, everybody deserves suicide prevention rather than suicide assistance. There’s nothing that should ever happen to any one of us that would lead to us being met with a look that says, “Maybe you’re better off dead.” There is always more that we can do in terms of love. And euthanasia and assisted suicide represent a failure to love. – Amanda Achtman, Director of Ethics, Canadian Physicians for Life End of life care—including intolerable suffering—is actually well-managed by hospice or palliative care. Furthermore, MAiD offers a short cut which totally ignores the spiritual dimension of life. --Denis Boyd, Coquitlam psychologist So, what you’re actually saying is that the person’s life no longer has any meaning. – Mary O’Neill, president, Talitha Koum Society Euthanasia is not actually about autonomy because it involves a doctor or nurse practitioner killing someone by lethal poison. Autonomy is an act that one does by oneself. This is an issue of giving doctors and nurse practitioners the right in law to kill you. --Alex Schadenberg, executive director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Do you know how MAiD actually kills you? The MAiD cocktail of drugs is this—a pinch of Medazolam to make you sleepy. Then, a powerful injection of Propofol that scorches the lungs and causes them to fill with fluid. Finally, the paralytic Rocuronium, so it all looks so "beautiful and peaceful." It would be more accurate to call it Medical Assistance in Drowning. It’s the new standard of so-called compassion, dignity and human rights in Canada. --Angelina Ireland, president, Delta Hospice Society Our lives are meant to be an example to family members and friends of how to live a good life. Many family histories are about just that—remembering our ancestors in what they did that was good or even extraordinary. The way in which we face our death can also be a testimony of how a person can virtuously face the end of her life and what is it that she wants to teach the following generations about living that moment. This excludes euthanasia. Of course, this can only be understood if we appreciate the fact that we are bound to others and have duties towards them. –Germain McKenzie, professor, Redeemer Catholic College Your life is precious. If you are in pain or suffering or afraid, I want a world in which someone holds out a hand to you in comfort and support; not one where someone says, "Your life is not worth living, so why don't you just end it." --Sister Rhonda Brown, Daughters of Saint Mary of Providence Don’t you think that love is the most important thing in life? And if you do, then ending your life prematurely through MAiD deprives you of your ability to love and to be loved. Everyone should embrace every opportunity to increase love in the world, and you can only do that by being alive. --Terry O’Neill, Blooms into Rooms founder Giving the right to people to have themselves killed, because they want to avoid a loss of dignity or some pain, is wrong for several reasons. It diminishes our trust in doctors and nurses if we know that they have the power to kill us. It’s a selfish act that can upset family members—even traumatize them. And, perhaps most important of all, it erodes the respect for life that our society was built on. --John Hof, St. Joseph’s Parish (Langley), veteran pro-life activist -30-