Mr. Speaker, it has been pointed out by a number of my colleagues that while freedom of human choice is a freedom we personally have, when we implement a regime like we are considering here, we are not just choosing for ourselves but we are choosing to have a person, a medical practitioner of some sort, obligated in some fashion to participate in our choice. It is on those points that the House has struggled over these past few days.
The one clear commonality among the concerns that we have expressed is the concern that we need to protect the conscience rights of those medical practitioners who for one reason or another may not wish to participate at all, either directly in implementing a physician-assisted suicide act or in referring to a person who would in fact carry out the patient's wishes.