I thank you all for allowing me to come here and for the privilege of speaking to you, members of the committee.
I'd like to echo James's concerns and add my own two cents. I do have concerns with Bill C-14, including it's lack of linguistic precision.
Sadly, I feel the bill is dangerously dependent on euphemisms. Throughout, “medically assisted dying” is used to describe what is, in reality, physician-assisted suicide. This is problematic in the way that it undercuts palliative care. After all, what is palliative care if it is not medically assisted dying? I urge you to please use accurate terminology so that termination of life is not confused with palliative medicine.
Furthermore, the proposed law necessitates that, in order for someone to assist an individual with suicide a medical professional must be of the opinion that the person meets all the criteria, including the opinion that they have a grievous medical condition. Since the term “grievous” is vague, an attempt is made to make that definition more specific in proposed subsection 241.2(2).
However, even here, Bill C-14 runs into problems. How is one to define “intolerable suffering” as opposed to “tolerable suffering”? The reality is that intolerable suffering is relative. Suffering is modified by many diverse factors. Therapies and treatments are readily available to address all of these factors. Not only is unendurable suffering relative, but it is too much to ask a physician to judge whether or not someone is indeed experiencing intolerable suffering.
In order to ensure that physicians don't approve euthanasia for vulnerable persons like James and myself in moments of weakness, specifics must be added to clause 3. This means including the need for reasonable proof, rather than mere opinion, in proposed paragraph 241.2(3)(a), and the addition of a specific prognosis in proposed paragraph 241.2(2)(d) to replace the phrase “natural death has become reasonably foreseeable”.
Proposed subsection 241(5) provides an exemption for aiding an individual to self-administer a substance for the purpose of ending their life. In an attempt to respect autonomy, the key checks and balances put in place elsewhere in the bill are hereby bypassed. We cannot just assume that people will be protected by the safeguards outlined in proposed subsection 241.2(3).
Most importantly, there must be oversight to ensure that patients are given the opportunity to revoke the request as outlined in proposed paragraph 241.2(3)(h). We must be careful that the appropriate balance mentioned in the preamble to the bill is not skewed too far towards autonomy, at the expense of vulnerable persons in need of protection, such as James and me.
The only true protection of the sanctity of life is a ban on euthanasia, but barring that, these recommendations will improve the situation for the disabled and ill.