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'Living with dignity' is group's message
The Montreal Gazette ^ | 8/13/10 | Charlie Fidelman

Posted on 08/15/2010 10:10:53 AM PDT by wagglebee

MONTREAL - According to surveys, 80 per cent of Quebecers, including doctors, say they are in favour of "dying with dignity," but a new grassroots group is quietly building opposition to the campaign to legalize euthanasia.

"Our biggest concern -and what's at stake here -is that we don't want the practice of euthanasia smuggled into the public health care system under the guise of medical treatment," said Linda Couture, director of Living With Dignity, a nonpartisan, nonreligious group focused on end-of-life issues.

Couture's group has started an online campaign calling on Quebecers to say "no" to euthanasia and assisted suicide.

A separate group of about 50 McGill University professors, including several from faculties of medicine and pharmacy, recently warned that Quebec risks making doctors "society's executioners" by attempting to decriminalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Both groups submitted briefs to the National Assembly committee that is to hold public hearings on the issue in September.

"We want to make sure people know what's involved and what their rights are," said Couture, whose group sees itself as the "voice of the silent and vulnerable," including the elderly, the sick and the handicapped.

As soon as its English-language website went live last week (the French site was up in June), signatures on the manifesto jumped to more than 1,000, Couture said.

The group is concerned that the Quebec College of Physicians, the province's medical regulatory body, last year came out in favour of euthanasia as appropriate care under certain circumstances when death is imminent and inevitable.

A debate on end-of-life issues is a good thing but Quebecers are being asked to give their opinions on a topic few know much about, Couture said.

There's a lot of confusion with definition of terms in end-of-life care, Couture added -for example, between palliative sedation and euthanasia.

Few people want to suffer but there's no need to kill the patient to kill the pain, she said.

"We have a lot of unanswered questions: How much will it cost in Quebec? Who will pay for that? Who will practise (euthanasia) and where? How will that change the relationship between doctor and patient?"

Her concerns about terminology echo the Canadian Medical Association Journal position that confusion over euthanasia burdens the end-of-life debate. "Opposing sides use it to further their ideological views: murder vs. mercy; the right to live vs. the right to die with dignity; selfishness vs. compassion," Ken Flegel and Paul Hebert (senior editor and editor-in-chief) wrote in an editorial titled Time to Move on From the Euthanasia Debate.

They called on doctors to promote honest dialogue. For example, adding enough sedation to relieve pain and agitation and improve comfort in a cancer patient may increase the probability of death -but that's not euthanasia.

Those who oppose euthanasia are easy to mobilize, fanned by religion or ideology, said Helene Bolduc of the Association quebecoise pour le droit de mourir dans la dignite.

"It's not that we're fanatic about euthanasia. We want choice for those who are sick and suffering and can't go on anymore."

For information about the Living With Dignity manifesto, go to www.vivredignite.com/en/welcome.html



TOPICS: Canada; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: assistedsuicide; euthanasia; moralabsolutes; prolife
"We want to make sure people know what's involved and what their rights are," said Couture, whose group sees itself as the "voice of the silent and vulnerable," including the elderly, the sick and the handicapped.

The culture of death wants nothing more than to strip people of their rights.

1 posted on 08/15/2010 10:10:55 AM PDT by wagglebee
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To: cgk; Coleus; cpforlife.org; narses; Salvation; 8mmMauser

Pro-Life Ping


2 posted on 08/15/2010 10:11:43 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: BykrBayb; floriduh voter; Lesforlife

Ping


3 posted on 08/15/2010 10:12:14 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: 185JHP; 230FMJ; Albion Wilde; Aleighanne; Alexander Rubin; An American In Dairyland; Antoninus; ...
Moral Absolutes Ping!

Freepmail wagglebee to subscribe or unsubscribe from the moral absolutes ping list.

FreeRepublic moral absolutes keyword search
[ Add keyword moral absolutes to flag FR articles to this ping list ]


4 posted on 08/15/2010 10:13:01 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

Well if a person with all his capacities says he/she wants to die and not be the subject of a lot of treatments, I don’t see the problem at all.

His/her body, his/her decision.

The problem is with person suffering from say dementia who cannot decide by themselves... And also children who also do not have the capacity to decide by themselves.

This is where it stops for me.


5 posted on 08/15/2010 10:14:45 AM PDT by Michel12
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To: wagglebee
'80 per cent of Quebecers, including doctors, say they are in favour of "dying with dignity,"'

There are about 7.5 million people who live in Quebec. 80% is 6 million.

That's gonna take a lot of Flavor-Aid!


6 posted on 08/15/2010 10:22:12 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: All
Pinged from Terri Dailies


7 posted on 08/15/2010 10:31:31 AM PDT by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

Leftists do not want people to know what’s going on, or what our rights are. They like to spread the lie that their victims are willing victims.


8 posted on 08/15/2010 11:17:11 AM PDT by BykrBayb (Somewhere, my flower is there. ~ Þ)
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