While Quebec MNAs prepare to vote in a few days on Quebec’s Bill 52, which seeks to legalize euthanasia by calling it "medical aid in dying," the true experts in humanity launch a serious warning: to offer to end a person’s life, and to do so by intentionally injecting a poison, will never be medical care, but rather a very serious betrayal of the sick and the dying.
In a powerful video launched today in Montreal, two giants in the care of vulnerable people are appealing to the conscience of MNAs.
Euthanasia is at our doorstep, but we still have the power — for the sake of humanity — to forbid entry.
Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche – with 150 communities in 40 countries that welcome people with disabilities – clearly condemns euthanasia as a crime. In an appeal to our humanity, he asks us to reject legalization of euthanasia. He contends that if we want our society to be truly human, we must learn to accompany and support those who are most vulnerable.
Dr. Balfour Mount, founder of palliative care in North America and a world-renowned expert in care of the dying, warns against the grave error of a possible legalization of euthanasia. He insists that palliative care can effectively manage all of a patient’s pain and suffering, while the legalization of euthanasia would seriously endanger the weak and vulnerable. The safety and protection of all citizens is paramount; it has always taken precedence over individual rights in public health.
Transcript
Marc Beauchamp
MNAs who will vote in a few weeks on whether or not to adopt Bill 52 will probably make the gravest decision of their career. Because in the end, they will be part of a chain that will lead to homicides.
Jean Vanier
For 50 years now, I have lived with people who are very weak, fragile, people with serious disabilities. Some cannot walk or talk. And I think I can say that these are people who teach us what it means to love.
Nicolas Steenhout
Everyone gets discouraged at one time or another, sometimes very discouraged. When we become discouraged, we become vulnerable. From my own experience, I know that if someone had told me 5 years ago "Look , euthanasia is available," I probably would have done it.
Jean Vanier
And in my community over the years, as you can imagine, there are many people who have died. We want to accompany them, be with them until the last minute. We thereby ... No question of euthanasia . It is like a form of wound, a crime.
Balfour Mount
I speak to you as a physician who has been at the bedside of dying people at McGill's Royal Victoria Hospital for 40 years. But I also speak as a cancer patient thus the tracheostomy. The most vulnerable are put at risk when euthanasia is legalised
Geneviève Dechêne
I find it obscene that we'd offer to patients dying in Quebec to kill them instead of caring for them. I ask the MNAs who will vote on this bill, I ask you to vote in favour of patient care at end of life, not euthanasia. Killing a patient who is dying is not a treatment. It's murder.
Balfour Mount
I think it would be a disastrous mistake to legalize euthanasia in Quebec and Canada.
Jean Vanier
And most importantly, we must avoid at all costs legislation to kill people, ultimately legalizing euthanasia. We discover that a society is human, truly human, only if the weakest have their place.
Marc Beauchamp
Quebecers really deserve more than to have their government provide a doctor to kill them. Quebecers deserve protection, they really deserve to be protected until the end of their lives.
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2014