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As the last jolts of the summer end, there are many indications that this fall will be hot with respect to the issue of euthanasia in Quebec.

August ended with the official opening of the Superior Court lawsuit in which two people living with a disability are challenging the federal and provincial laws to eliminate the “end of life” and “reasonably foreseeable death” criteria.

At that first meeting, Living with Dignity and the Physicians’ Alliance Against Euthanasia told the court of their intention to file a formal request to be included in the list of intervenors in the case. If their application is accepted, the two organizations will be able to provide the Court with their expertise on the ethical, medical, and social issues surrounding euthanasia and assisted suicide, with the aim of opposing the expansion of the criteria of the law.

Furthermore, this request to extend the laws of Quebec and Canada in perfect continuity with the trends observed elsewhere in the world. Indeed, we can observe that the very logic of euthanasia continually generates demands for continuous extension. In that respect, as is already the case in the Netherlands where a bill has been tabled for this purpose, Belgium is now considering the possibility of extending euthanasia to people who have “the feeling of having accomplished their lives.”

Thus, this is where culminate – until now – the successive extensions of laws that open the door to death on request. Over time, “exceptional measures for exceptional cases” end up being offered to healthy people who simply have the “fault” of being old. And in the meanwhile, statistics are exceeding forecasts, abuses are accumulating, and “safeguard” are collapsing one after the other – already, there is pressure to “simplify the paperwork and ease the obligation of seeking a second opinion from an objective and independent doctor” .

And while all eyes are obsessively fixed on death as a medical solution to suffering, and while accusing fingers point at people who refuse to see it as a gesture of legitimate compassion, society as a whole misses many essential questions.

Instead of asking why someone would refuse death to a suffering person, would it not be more beautiful and respectful to ask ourselves why this person came to want to die? Instead of helping people kill themselves, should we not ask where society failed to be able to accompany them properly?

Faced with people's suffering, our most pressing concern should not be to ask ourselves what we could do to make each person feel desired, that everyone has access to all the good care available nowadays and that everyone can take part in the collective life, regardless of their physical condition?