Mr. Speaker, since we last had this debate the member for Burnaby—Douglas had a pretty bad accident. I wish him all the very best on returning to the House.
When we started the debate in which I had two minutes of speaking time, I alluded to a reference from Drs. Herbert Handin and Gerald Klerman from the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1993 in which they concluded as follows, and I will repeat the quote to put it in the context of the debate:
If those advocating legalization of assisted suicide prevail, it will be a reflection that as a culture we are turning away from efforts to improve our care of the mentally ill, the infirm and the elderly. Instead, we would be licensing the right to abuse and exploit the fears of the ill and depressed. We would be accepting the view of those who are depressed and suicidal that death is a preferred solution to the problems of illness, age, and depression.
What we are discussing here is not the act of artificially prolonging life. I believe there is a general consensus within society that medical means ought not to be used to artificially prolong the lives of those suffering so much that, to all intents and purposes, their lives no longer have any meaning.
That is not what we are discussing here. What we are discussing here is the proactive act of helping in someone's suicide or death.
We are not debating the withholding or withdrawal of life support systems but whether physicians and others should help suffering individuals to cause their own death. Where do we draw the line once we have crossed the threshold of active euthanasia or assisted suicide?
The patient is inevitably influenced by someone else whether it be a doctor, a relative or a friend. This advice, and more so the act of helping the death of another, can be influenced by so many factors, many emotional, as to become very subjective. Who are we to decide to deliberately terminate a human life? What happens if our judgment happens to have been wrong? It is then too late to change it.
I have a son Peter who is severely handicapped, intellectually handicapped. He cannot hear and almost cannot speak. Lately his kidneys collapsed. I remember meeting with a renal surgeon at the Montreal General Hospital. We were examining whether Peter should be given the same chance as somebody who is productive in society.
Some in society would look at the bottom line and say no, Peter should not have a chance to have dialysis, that it should be given to another person who is productive in society. To the tribute of Dr. Kaye, he decided Peter should be given that same chance as anybody else. Today he goes to dialysis three times a week and brings joy to the people there. He brings joy to the nurses by the fact that he accepts this imposition on him with joy. He has a smile on his face. He brightens up the place. Maybe he is not productive socially. Maybe he is not productive in dollars and cents, but he brings a lesson, which has been a huge lesson, to my own family, to me, to my wife and to our other children.
Who are we to decide? Should we decide that he who is not productive should not have dialysis and so we assist in the termination of his life? What is more, do we decide in our subjective opinion that somebody like him should be terminated earlier to avoid suffering or to avoid his having to go to dialysis considering that already his life is pretty well impaired?
Once we cross a line in the sand that gives any of us the legal authority to help terminate someone else's life, we breach a most sacred trust, the tenet of the sanctity of life.
Today some will hold that Peter should not have been born at all. We have technological instruments that tell us whether a child will have Downs Syndrome or be severely retarded before his birth, so some say he should not have the right to be part of society because he will not be productive and will be a hindrance to his family.
Thank the Lord that we never thought that way. He brought joy to us. He brought a tremendous amount of comfort to our life. He brought an example. Because of him my children are more aware of others with handicaps and of others who are weak in society. I rejoice in his life. I rejoice in the life of every person. Every person has the right to live. We as human beings, so frail and subjective, have no right to decide when a person should die, when we should extinguish a life.
I am totally against the motion. I hope it is rejected.