By Lloyd Mackey

THE MOVE by a task force of Quebec physicians to explore the possibility of legalized euthanasia drew a rapid response from Margaret Somerville, a leading Canadian medical ethicist and professor in the law and medicine faculties at McGill University in Montreal.

Somerville told CC.com this week that the Quebec College of Physicians (QCP) is responding to pressure from euthanasia supporters who are trying to win public acceptance for the idea that heavy medication for pain is already creating de facto euthanasia.

"But pain relief is not the primary intent of killing. And rarely is it that pain relief kills someone," said Somerville, who tackled the issue in her 2002 book, Death Talk: The Case against Euthanasia and Physician-assisted Suicide (McGill-Queens).

The euthanasia and assisted suicide issue has been fanned into life, so to speak, by three elements: the QCP task force review; pro-euthanasia developments in the Netherlands and Switzerland in Europe; and the legalization of assisted suicide in the American states of Oregon and, as of last year, Washington.

Switzerland was in the news earlier this month when renowned British conductor Sir Edward Thomas Downes and his wife chose to die there together at a suicide clinic in that nation, after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The Quebec College is proposing, at this point, that consideration be given to including euthanasia "as part of the appropriate care in certain particular circumstances."

According to QCP secretary Yves Robert, the College wants to avoid a divisive confrontation between those who are for or against euthanasia, saying such a debate would solve nothing.

For their part, pro-euthanasia supporters are suggesting that Quebec, of all the provinces, is the most likely place in Canada to win support for euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Ruth von Fuchs, president of the Right to Die Society of Canada, told the Globe and Mail last week that it is no surprise Quebec is leading the way on this issue. Public opinion polls indicate that as many as 80 percent of the population of Quebec support euthanasia or assisted suicide, she said.

But Somerville said she is increasingly concerned that, in the name of ethical, caring compassion, organizations like Right to Die are trying to frame the argument that euthanasia is already taking place, only it is described as pain control.

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In the Netherlands, she argued, the issue plays out in reverse. "People are frightened of pain relief," she said, because of the perception that physicians are "crossing the line as a way to hasten death."

Somerville allowed that euthanasia advocates may "genuinely believe that this is a compassionate, merciful response. But it is individually based, not considering the effect on society."

And she took issue with the approach that the QCP has taken in leaving the review to a small committee of just a few doctors.

"For something as important as this, they should poll the whole College. The practice of medicine has to be under the direction of the College," she said.

The College task force's recommendation is expected to be part of a "reflection" document that the QCP will release next fall. The hope of the College is that a public debate on the issue will pressure the federal government to eventually amend the criminal code.

But so far, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has indicated little interest in any amendments on the euthanasia issue.

A Nicholson spokesperson told the Globe and Mail that the subject raises "complex ethical, legal and medical issues."

Related stories:

Quebec physicians tentatively propose legal euthanasia
College's task force on ethics believes province's society has evolved to the point that it would be acceptable in limited circumstances
Globe and Mail, July 15

Quebec keeps 'open mind' on euthanasia
The Quebec government says it is open to debating the legalization of euthanasia, reigniting a polarizing national debate that the Conservative federal government says it has no interest in revisiting.
Globe and Mail, July 15

Doctors aim to revise law on euthanasia
Right-to-die bill due for debate this fall
Phil Couvrette, Canwest News Service, July 17

The good news
Indeed, in this country, in the near future, despair might become a capital offence. Francine Lalonde's private member's bill, now before our House of Commons, will make it entirely legal for a doctor in Canada to prescribe lethal "medications" to terminate your angst-ridden 18-year-old, the moment he asks for it. The notion that "perhaps we should hesitate before we proceed with the slaughter of another human being" was swept away by our courts in the case of abortion (in 1988). We may now reasonably foresee a vast new field of murderous carnage becoming accepted as a glib fact of life.
David Warren, Ottawa Citizen, July 18

July 24/2009