Six MDs: No to euthanasia

National Post

As a future doctor, I read with interest the letter from MP Francine Lalonde. She states, "Too many people have to suffer too much before dying. The best palliative care ... cannot alleviate that. Doctors know that."

To support this statement, she notes the 75% approval of euthanasia among Quebec doctors but fails to mention that only 23% of medical specialists responded to the survey.

She also notes: "As for the fear of a slippery slope, remember that this fear was also voiced in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. But...that did not materialize."

It did. According to the findings of the Commission on Euthanasia begun in 1990, which anonymously monitored the practice of 406 Dutch physicians, of a total of 3,300 acts of euthanasia, fewer than 50% had been reported as euthanasia and there were at least 100 patients who had not given their consent.

She concludes by stating that the greatest compassion we can show to a dying patient is to kill him, because of his suffering. My still-early experience has taught me that the greatest pain in dying is not physical, but rather the moral suffering of not seeing that our life has a value. Only the embrace of another can relieve this suffering.

Laurence Normand-Rivest, medical student, Universite de Montreal.

'The greatest pain in dying is not physical'

I'm glad my death wish was not granted

National Post

Re: Dying With Dignity Should Be A Right For Canadians, letter to the editor, April 19.

Canadian friends have been keeping me in touch with the MP Francine Lalonde's private member's bill to legalize assisted suicide: I think it does a huge disservice to suffering people.

I have several disabling conditions and spend my days in my wheelchair or in bed. I experience severe spinal pain on a daily basis, and even morphine doesn't always alleviate it. Some years ago I decided I wanted to die, a settled wish that lasted over 10 years.

During those years I attempted suicide seriously several times. I was saved by good friends getting me to hospital in time to be treated -- against my wishes. Had Ms. Lalonde's bill been in place then, I would have requested physician assisted suicide, and under the supposed "safeguards," my request would have been granted.

If I had died then I would have missed the best years of my life, and no one would ever have known that the doctors' prognoses were wrong, and that the best years of my life lay in the future, not in the past.

Alison Davis, Dorset, United Kingdom.

'The greatest pain in dying is not physical'

National Post

The deception in MP Francine Lalonde's letter really set me off. That's because my own future depends on truth being published -- I was born with arthrogryposis, and I now live in a long-term care hospital, due to my cardio-pulmonary problem.

People here die on a regular basis, and in 10 years that I have been here, I have never witnessed any belly-aching that there was no law passed so they could "die with dignity." That said, however, I have witnessed the decline in how some nurses and assistants feel about some patients' lives.

Ms. Lalonde states: "surveys clearly indicate support for a debate on euthanasia and its legalization: 76% for the specialists and 74% for the general practitioners."

What this tells me is that 76% of these so-called specialists should go to medical-school, and learn to be doctors instead of serial-killers.

Robert Greig, Montreal.

I don't understand how Francine Lalonde believes that taking one's life is in any way dignifying. As a breast cancer patient, my sufferings are bearable because of the incredible support my family and friends continue to give me. I can understand why someone can get to the depths of despair, but the best form to alleviate suffering is love. I am witness to it. I know I have more dignity because I am loved and not because I ended my life with the state's approval.

Luisa Gomez, 25, Vancouver.

'Right to die will soon become a duty'

National Post

Let us not be fooled by the soothing words of Francine LaLonde, the architect of Bill C384. In the near future when an increasing number of aging Baby Boomers begins to seriously strain the financial resources of our health-care system, the right to die will swiftly become the duty to die.

Suzanne Formanek, Ottawa.

'Right to die will soon become a duty'

National Post

I have personal experience with people who suffer from depression-related conditions. If euthanasia or assisted suicide were legalized in Canada, the lives of people suffering from depression would be threatened.

Depression is often undiagnosed or poorly treated. Combined with other life-threatening or chronic conditions, the cry for help is often phrased as saying they would rather be dead.

However, one of the things that separates us from the animal kingdom is our humanity and sense of ethics. We need to be doing all we can to improve quality of life, not killing people when they are in pain. I also have personal experience with very real chronic pain that took years to finally manage. Death is no solution.

Karen Linde, Winnipeg.

'Right to die will soon become a duty'

National Post

Francine Lalonde would kill us softly. And she drives her misplaced compassion by putting the fear of mismanaged pain into every Canadian. Despite all the so-called "protections" in Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal, two nurses administered lethal doses of morphine without a physician's knowledge.

Oregon also has provided some shocking statistics. The percentage of elderly not wanting to burden their families have resorted to "choosing" death at a rate that has risen from 12% in 1998 to 45% in 2007. And psychiatric evaluation for those requesting lethal medication has dropped from 31% in 1998 to 0% in 2007.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide should be seen for what they are -- the killing of a human being, which accords no dignity to the victim.

Jakki Jeffs, Guelph, Ont.

Six MDs: No to euthanasia

National Post

From ancient times, euthanasia has been curtailed because lawmakers could foresee that once established, no one is safe.

Not uncommonly, my patients have earnestly wanted to die and wished there were someone to assist them. Yet after treatment, they are glad to be alive and grateful nobody granted their self destruction wish.

The dependency of the elderly and deeply suffering, bring out the worst and best of people. It is all too easy to agree to someone's voluntary death because it makes it convenient to: grab the estate, avoid having to visit, stop the vicarious suffering that comes with seeing them struggle

Moreover the highly principled profession of medicine is not above being corrupted. It happened in Nazi Germany and it could happen here. The age-old principal that killing one makes it so much easier to kill another always applies to all humans.

Dr. Philip Ney, Victoria.

Six MDs: No to euthanasia

National Post

Canadians need to reject attempts to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia as solution for people's sufferings. Ironically, research shows that the feeling of unwantedness, especially from those who are supposed to love and care about us, is the worst threat to our human dignity. Agreeing with assisted suicide is an affirmation that, depending on the circumstances, some lives are not worth living and need to be terminated. Under these overwhelming fears, a free autonomous decision for euthanasia is an illusion. Eventually, society will not be able to defend the most vulnerable from abuse and the doctor becomes a death dealer instead of a healer.

Efforts should reside in life-affirming options. In the recent conference of The American Psychosocial Oncology Society, researchers presented evidence that the medical personnel was among one of the most important sources of hope for patients. Hope and dignity is a fluid-transcendent experience and it changes continuously. It falls outside the realm of medicine.

For the well-being of our patient, we can do better than euthanasia--we must.

Dr. Jose Pereira, Dr. Pamela Eisener-Parsche, Dr. Rene Leiva, Bruyere Continuing Care, Ottawa.

Six MDs: No to euthanasia

National Post

One of the biggest problems in the euthanasia debate is the purposeful changing of terms to confuse, and thereby convince, people. Withdrawing medical treatment, which is neither illegal nor immoral anywhere, is not euthanasia despite what the Quebec College of Physicians will have you believe.

Neither is euthanasia a type of palliative care. The only way, it seems that Francine Lalonde can pass her bill is by confusing everyone

We need to do away with euphemisms that may sound good but are in fact misleading. "Death with dignity" implies that we can make death dignified by treating patients like pets or objects. "Death with dignity" is not the same thing as death with efficiency.

Until we recognize that our dignity lies not in what we can do or what circumstances we find ourselves, but in who were are, we will never realize our true dignity. A dignity equal amongst fellow human beings, despite unequal capacities, is one worth having.

Dr. Tim Lau, Ottawa.