Physician-assisted suicide debate resurfaces, despite physicians' objections

Like it or not, the euthanasia question is back.

The national debate about the legalization of physician-assisted suicide was reinvigorated last month with the introduction of Bill C-562 in the House of Commons. The bill would amend the Criminal Code to give physicians immunity from prosecution for homicide if certain conditions -- the patient must be terminally ill; in physical or mental pain; and give informed consent -- are met.

This isn’t the first time the question has come before Parliament. A similar bill was introduced in 2005 and, in short order, tossed aside with the dissolution of the Liberal minority government that December. This year’s version, brought forward by the same representative who drafted the 2005 initiative, Bloc Québécois MP Francine Lalonde, arrived on the floor of the House much to the chagrin of not only conservative and religious anti-euthanasia activists, who have predictably derided the idea, but also the very group that the legislation seeks to conditionally exempt from murder charges: physicians.

The Canadian Medical Association’s official policy on euthanasia and assisted suicide (PDF) is unequivocal: “Canadian physicians should not participate in euthanasia or assisted suicide.” “For the medical profession to support such a change and subsequently participate in these practices,” the policy reads, “a fundamental reconsideration of traditional medical ethics would be required.” The CMA needn’t worry. Despite the long overdue relief it would offer an anguished contingent of patients and their physicians, conventional wisdom in Ottawa says this bill is as good as dead. The debate about physicians' ethical and legal responsibilities and roles, however, is very much alive.

Tomorrow: Dr Jeff Blackmer, the executive director of the CMA Office of Ethics, discusses Bill C-562 and the CMA’s policy. Read it here.

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