Catholics clash over assisted suicide law
Canadian Catholic organizations have been sharply divided by the legalization of assisted suicide, with bishops asking to be consulted on any new law — and critics urging no “collaboration” on what they call an immoral hastened-death scheme they say the church should have no part of.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops wants assurances any legislation will provide “the greatest protection possible to the lives and health of all,” and constitutionally shield doctors from having to participate in assisted dying in any form.
“The classic words of the Hippocratic Oath bind medical practitioners to keep patients ‘from harm and injustice’ and not to ‘give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it’ nor to ‘make a suggestion to this effect,’ ” Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher of Gatineau, Que., writes in a letter to departing justice minister Peter MacKay.
“The court’s ruling not only erodes society’s appreciation for human life,” Durocher writes, “but also the trust and confidence all people, particularly those most vulnerable, should have in medical personnel and health-care institutions to protect their lives.”
There are reports justice department officials have already quietly begun consultations, “but everybody seems to be in the dark,” Durocher said in an interview.
“What we would like to have is an understanding of what is going on in this consultative process,” he said. “If it has started, we would like to be part of it. We would like to know what the discussions are about and we would like to have some input.
“We think the tradition that we bring — of compassion, of caring and of respect for people — needs to be present within the discussion,” he added.
But some Catholic groups criticized the bishops for not continuing to pressure the Harper Conservatives to invoke the notwithstanding clause to delay any new bill for up to five years. The court gave Parliament 12 months to craft new legislation granting competent, consenting adults suffering a “grievous and irremediable” condition the right to death by a lethal prescription.
“To basically jump the gun and to speak about collaborating on a law presupposes that there is going to be a law,” argues Christian Elia, executive director of the Catholic Civil Rights League. “We think now is the time to be defiant and to fight the ruling.”
The not withstanding clause has never been invoked at the federal level and the Conservatives have indicated they have no intention of overriding the court’s ruling. However, this fall’s federal election could bring a change in government.
Elia said the bishops are wary of being too overtly political. “In fairness to them ... they didn’ t really sign up to be politicians,” he said. “They ’re priests and bishops and shepherds. They have an honest concern. And there’s always the fear that their opinions and their views — which, of course, are also the views of millions of Canadians — might be overlooked,” he said.
But Elia said the debate on conscientious objection is already being played out at the provincial level, “and to collaborate on what, essentially, is something we should have no part of — working on a law that accepts and condones physician-assisted suicide — is disappointing.”
“If the bishops were going to come out with a statement at this point, it ought to have been a more defiant statement condemning the Supreme Court’s decision.”
Ethicist Arthur Schafer said the bishops should be free to “speak, to lobby, to make their voices heard.” But he said the argument that legal aid in dying will erode public faith in doctors is “one more straw in the wind” that the Catholic hierarchy is “dramatically out of touch with the moral sensibility of Canadian Catholics.”
A recent Ipsos Reid poll conducted on behalf of Dying with Dignity Canada suggests an overwhelming majority of Canadians — including 83 per cent of Catholics surveyed — support making it legal for doctors to help the terminally ill kill themselves.
In Oregon, doctors who declared they would have no part helping patients die after the state became the first in the U.S. to legalize assisted suicide reported losing patient trust, Schafer said.
“Very few people, ultimately, are going to request physician-assisted suicide or mercy killing at the end of their lives,” said Schafer, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba. “But large numbers of people take comfort and reassurance knowing that if they get into deep trouble at the end of life — if their pain and suffering is intolerable — that their doctor would provide an assisted death.”
The Supreme Court, in its unanimous ruling, said no doctor would be compelled to provide aid in dying. However, the justices said the Charter rights of patients and doctors would need to be reconciled. The question remains whether “conscientious objectors” will have a duty to refer patients to another, willing doctor.
Queen’s University bioethicist Udo Schuklenk said people shouldn’t be subjected to an “access-to-dying lottery” and that the rights protected under the charter are not absolute. “There can be limits imposed on conscientious objection,” he said.
Moira McQueen, executive director of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute, said the bishops make clear their opposition to assisted suicide and that the debate is about strategy, not morals.
“I agree in terms of working for protection of conscience,” she said. “But I can’t myself see any way in working in advance to craft legislation, even if it’s for protection of conscience or for safeguards.”
“I’d rather take the stance that this hasn’t happened yet, let’s do something to see if we can see that it doesn’t happen, or at least give people in the country a longer spell of time to look at the issue in depth.”