Conservative MP calls it a good step that doesn’t go far enough
By Deborah Gyapong
OTTAWA (CCN)
The Justice Committee amended Bill C-14 by adding a clause saying no one should be compelled to participate in euthanasia and assisted suicide May 11.
But Conservative MPs as well as medical and legal representatives hope for tougher amendments protecting conscience rights and religious freedom before Bill C-14 becomes law, which is likely June 6.
“We think it’s a good start,” said Larry Worthen, spokesperson for the Coalition for HealthCARE and Conscience and executive director of the Christian Medical Dental Society of Canada. “Our concern is the clause could be read narrowly or broadly.”
Worthen said the context does not make it clear Parliament intends the participation by caregivers in assisted death be voluntary. “We think that’s their intention, but it needs to be more explicit in the legislation.”
“That includes not participating in referral,” he said. “We have a moral theological opinion on this that says that referral is formal cooperation in evil, so there should be approaches in place to ensure that caregivers are not required to refer, to actually perform euthanasia, or to be discriminated against because of their refusal to participate.”
Justice Committee chair Liberal MP Anthony Housefather said in a May 16 email he was “very pleased to have participated in the drafting of an all-party consensus resolution on conscience” that passed May 11.
The committee added a clause that says: “For greater certainty, nothing in this section compels an individual to provide or assist in providing medical assistance in dying.”
It also amended the bill’s preamble to include: “Whereas everyone has freedom of conscience and religion under section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; Whereas nothing in this Act affects the guarantee of freedom of conscience and religion.”
The Committee returned the bill to the House of Commons May 12, which began debate on Third Reading May 16.
Conservative MP Mark Warawa, who had hoped for tougher conscience protections, called the amendment a “step in the right direction, but [it] did not adequately react to the issue.”
Warawa said the government’s plan is to leave regulation regarding conscience rights to the provinces and if the provinces do not regulate, leaving it to the various professional colleges. He said he would have preferred amendments to the bill “to make it a criminal offence to force any health professionals against their will to participate in euthanasia and assisted suicide.”
He noted the College of Physicians of Ontario has already said it will require an “effective referral.”
“Nothing in those proposed amendments stop the colleges or the provinces from requiring physicians and other healthcare professionals to provide, participate or refer,” said Constitutional lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos. “That being said, it’s good at least the legislation that legalizes or decriminalizes assisted suicide recognized the Charter protects freedom of conscience and religion.”
“If nothing else, that’s a message from Parliament that clearly says they don’t intend for healthcare practitioners to be compelled to participate in this,” he said.
The clause in the text of the bill has more weight legally than the preamble. “The preamble has no legal effect,” Polizogopoulos said. “It does communicate the intention of Parliament.”
“C-14 should be based upon voluntary participation,” Polizogopoulos said. “This is too sensitive a topic for people to force people to do something that’s against their conscience.”
Instead, he urged the setting up of an “opt-in” approach, so that those medical professionals who want to be involved in assisted suicide and euthanasia opt in to obtain a license. “If you don’t have that license, you don’t have to provide it,” he said.
Warawa said he will still go ahead with his private member’s Bill C-268 that would make it a criminal offense to coerce, threaten or withdraw employment from healthcare workers who refuse to participate in euthanasia and assisted suicide. It will come up for debate in a year and a half, he said, likely the fall of 2017. “I was hoping my bill would not be needed,” he said.
“It will take two years to go through the House,” he said. The Liberal government, if they do not support the bill, will find itself going into the next election “having just voted against the Charter rights of physicians.”
