Just around the time of the 1995 referendum, a pro-life conference comes to Montreal. Hosted by Human Life International, a global pro-life organisation based in the US and founded by Fr. Paul Marx, the conference began with a mass and what was supposed to be a candle-lit procession from the basilica to the hotel. I think they did go through with the procession, but it mustn't have been a very prayerful one... Or actually, maybe it was especially prayerful!

Videotaped by the much missed, recently departed Clément Custeau.

Whereas the CBC hasn't been, I've been unforgiveably quiet about recent events involving Choose Life , McGill's pro-life club, whose status as an official club with a small budget and room reservation priviledges and other perks was recently suspended by McGill's student union as retaliation for the club's Oct. 6 invitation of Jojo Ruba of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical reform (see the Choose Life McGill information page for the backstory).

Basically, I held off because this kind of censorship and illeberality coming from student unions all around Canada (and in the US) is getting so regular and so predictable it's downright boring.

Now the McGill student union are asking Choose Life to consult with them on what events and what opinions they can express so that they can respect the "equity policy" and gain their club status back. Note to Student Union members: an equity policy cannot enforce equality of opinion on any matter, especially moral, especially at a university whose mandate is to seek truth through vigourous debate.

What hogwash--what absolute craziness. And this is a student council: these kids are going to want to be MPs and leaders some day. Very scary indeed.

I don't know what the solution is. These students are kids, after all. They can't be expected to grasp the sublime irony contained in the act of censoring a group while simultaneously attending an eminent place of learning such as McGill, a place where maximum debate and maximum free speech is expected.

I don't expect the kids to understand, but I expect the grownups to do something. For while McGill authorities think everything is ok, under the surface, working at the student level and the union levels is an insiduous nexus of individuals and groups who aren't satisfied with free speech and open debate but want to force feed their views and squelch dissent. If from the right there's a creationism lobby infiltrating centres of learning and tainting scientific debate about evolution, from the left there's a relativism lobby infiltrating universities and tainting rigourous debate about moral issues. And that has to worry McGill authorities, who know that the credibility of an institution such as theirs rides on its committment to, and delivery of, an environment where open debate is not only possible but welcome. And they're far from that situation right now. We have documentary proof of that.

What to do? Concerned alumni should band together and pressure McGill authorities to act on this.

And I encourage Choose Life to re-invite Mr Ruba, just like McGill president Heather Munroe Blum encouraged them to do. I know all this nonsense has been hard on Choose Life members, who, at the end of the day, only wanted to help student mothers and their babies, but the fight that they got is theirs to fight. And whether life is respected and future children make it out of the womb depends in large part on whether the pro-life message makes it to university students' ears. Choose Life members, you have been given a good and noble fight, please take it up, as burdensome and tedious as it may be.

A final thing: is there no debating society or some other (small "l") liberal club at McGill? What about the Conservative McGill club? Would it not be appropriate for them to take up the freedom of speech issue, inviting Mr. Ruba over if Choose Life can't? How about forming a coalition of free-speech loving clubs at McGill: they can all host Jojo Ruba together in solidarity with Choose Life; they don't even have to agree on abortion, just on free speech.

©William Gairdner, reprinted with permission, original text here.

The ancient democratic regimes could never withstand an assault on their right to define certain classes of humans as non-persons, especially their slaves. But then, neither can the modern democracies. For the ancients, the slightest admission before the law that a slave was capable of such things as stealing, or committing adultery, would be to treat him as a free human being, a citizen, and therfore as someone with full legal protection against slavery itself! Such an admission would have brought down the entire slave-system, and that is why certain overly-affectionate masters could be punished at law for daring to consider their slaves in terms too human. Cato ate and drank with his slaves, and his wife suckled slave children, but he strictly bought and sold them just the same.

     The importance of such category law (and of the category psychology with its attendant propaganda) to the ideological purity of all political systems, should not be underestimated. The ancients used it to justify slavery and massacres. Modern campaigns of genocide such as in Cambodia, or Africa, use it to liquidate whole races. And of course the sophisticated and highly educated nazi policy-makers understood intimately the reason non-personhood was a necessity: It enabled the murder of the disabled, infanticide, and extermination of all undesirables by otherwise moral citizens. Category law is a technique intended to transform human subjects into objects without rights (or with special, subordinate rights only) for the purpose of sustaining one kind of ideological regime or another. Modern liberal democrats, and their blue-liberal bretheren have embarked on the same course.

• ÉVÉNEMENT : MANIFESTATION CONTRE L’EUTHANASIE
• DATE : MARDI, 1ER DÉCEMBRE,. HEURE : DE 16 H À 17 H30
• ENDROIT : COLLINE PARLEMENTAIRE À OTTAWA
• ORGANISATEUR : COALITION POUR LA PRÉVENTION DE L’EUTHANASIE

Ce jour-là, le 1er décembre, les députés de la Chambre des communes passeront à la deuxième heure de débat concernant le projet de loi C-384 intitulé « Projet de loi pour amender le Code criminel (le droit de mourir dans la dignité) », puis, deux jours plus tard, le 2 décembre, au vote final en Chambre à ce sujet.

Le projet de loi C-384 propose d’amender l’article 222 du Code criminel pour que celui-ci prévoie « qu’un intervenant médical ne commet pas un homicide s’il aide une personne à mourir, si la personne est âgée d’au moins 18 ans et, soit qu’elle continue, après avoir essayé ou expressément refusé les traitements appropriés disponibles, à éprouver de la douleur physique ou mentale grave sans aucune perspective de soulagement, soit qu’elle souffre d’une maladie terminale. » En d’autres mots, si une personne de 18 ans ou plus est suicidaire parce qu’elle souffre psychologiquement et elle demande qu’un médecin l’aide à s’enlever la vie, le médecin doit accéder à sa demande. Ainsi se résume jusqu’où peut aller le projet de loi en question. Le projet de loi est donc des plus honnêtes parce qu’il reconnaît qu’il est impossible de réserver l’euthanasie et le suicide assisté aux personnes qui souffrent physiquement, car cela serait discriminatoire. Il prévoit aussi qu’il serait impossible de réserver l’euthanasie aux personnes aptes à se suicider elles-mêmes avec juste un peu d’assistance (informations, prescription), car il serait discriminatoire que les personnes qui seraient inaptes à se suicider elles-mêmes ne puissent y recourir. Très bientôt, même la limite d’âge de 18 ans serait rapidement jugée discriminatoire et serait, elle aussi, abolie.

Le Collège des médecins du Québec énonce des vœux pieux que l’euthanasie soit légalisée pour les cas qu’ils qualifient eux-mêmes d’ « exceptionnels » où la souffrance aux tout derniers jours d’une maladie terminale s’avère prolongée ou difficile à traiter. Or, les médecins doivent comprendre qu’il serait discriminatoire, et donc impossible, de limiter l’euthanasie à ce groupe de personnes. Par ailleurs, pour ces rares cas, il existe l’option de la « sédation palliative », soit le sommeil provoqué : l’euthanasie n’est nullement nécessaire pour que la douleur soit traitée en fin de vie de façon « appropriée ». Par ailleurs, le fait de prodiguer de la morphine en dose suffisante pour atténuer la douleur, ne constitue pas, non plus, un acte d’euthanasie. Bien que ces doses avancées puissent parfois hâter la mort de quelques heures, si le but recherché n’est que d’atténuer la souffrance et non de mettre fin à la vie, il ne s’agit là que d’un acte humanitaire fort souhaitable et louable.

Un sondage Environics publié le 2 novembre montre que les Québécois, bien qu’ils soient les plus en faveur de l’euthanasie au Canada, sont également les plus préoccupés par les risques et conséquences possibles de la légalisation de l’euthanasie.

******ENGLISH******

• EVENT: PROTEST AGAINST EUTHANASIA
• DATE: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, TIME: FROM 4 P.M. TO 5:30 P.M
• PLACE: COLLINE PARLEMENTAIRE À OTTAWA
• ORGANISORS: EUTHANASIA PREVENTION COALITION 

On December 1, the federal MPS in the House of Commons will go on to the second hour of debate concerning bill C-384 entitled An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (the right to die with dignity), and then, two days later, on December 2, to the final vote on the subject.

Bill C-384 aims to amend section 222 of the Criminal Code so that “a medical practitioner does not commit a homicide if they help a person to die, if that person is at least 18 years of age, and either they continue, after having tried or expressly refused appropriate, available treatments, to experience physical or mental pain without any prospect of relief, or they suffer from a terminal illness.” In other words, if a person of 18 years or more is suicidal, suffering psychologically, and asks a doctor to help them end their life, the doctor will have to heed their request. So can be summarised the extent of the bill. The latter is therefore very honest as it recognizes that it is impossible to reserve euthanasia and assisted suicide to persons who suffer physically, as that would be discriminatory. It also recognizes that it would be impossible to reserve euthanasia to persons who are able to take their own lives with just a little assistance (information or prescription, for assisted suicide), as it would be discriminatory that persons who would be unable to commit suicide not have access to the “right to have help to end one’s life”. Even the age limit would rapidly be deemed discriminatory, and be abolished.

The Quebec College of Physicians has recently enounced well-intended but pious wishes that euthanasia be legalised for the cases they qualify as “exceptional”, where in the very last days of a terminal illness, suffering may be prolonged or difficult to treat. However, physicians must understand that it would be discriminatory, and therefore impossible, to limit euthanasia to these rare cases. Also, for such cases, there exists the option of palliative sedation, or induced sleep: euthanasia is in no way necessary for pain to be treated appropriately at the end of life. Furthermore, to give morphine in doses sufficient to alleviate pain in no way constitutes en act of euthanasia. Even if terminal illness may sometimes require doses of morphine that may hasten death by a few hours, if the aim is solely to alleviate pain and not to end the life of the person, this merely constitutes a humanitarian act that is highly desirable and commendable.

An Environics poll published on November 2 shows that Quebecers, although most in favour of euthanasia in Canada, are also the most concerned by the possible risks and consequences of the legalisation of euthanasia.

La deuxième heure du débat du projet de loi de la députée Francine Lalonde -- le projet de loi C-384 pour la légalisation de l'euthanie -- aura lieu le mercredi 2 décembre à 17h30. Contactez votre député à Ottawa pour lui dire de voter non contre ce projet de loi injuste et inadéquat.

*****

The second hour of debate for C-384 is now Wednesday, Dec 2 at 5:30 pm. Lalonde traded with another Bloc MP to move the second reading to a date sometime after the Quebec College of Physicians called for the legalization of euthanasia in Canada. Contact your MP and tell him or her to vote this bad legislation down.

What Euthanasia Is

The word “euthanasia” comes from combining two greek words: “Eu” meaning “good”, and “thanatos” meaning “death”. So euthanasia literally means “good death.” The idea is that a death is good if it is painless. Now an important distinction must be made: not all painless deaths are euthanasia. Only those deaths in which either the patient or the doctor directly causes death as a means to eliminate pain is euthanasia. For example, a paraplegic who has many years to live but can’t stand the pain of not having his full mobility and therefore asks a doctor for a pill to end his life--that’s a case of euthanasia. However, a case of someone who dies normally from a disease (for example, from cancer) while under sedation (so that this person does not feel pain) is not euthanasia.

In short: euthanasia involves killing the patient to eliminate the pain, while normal end-of-life care involves eliminating the pain so that the patient can die painlessly, from natural causes (e.g. disease or old age). Nobody is against eliminating the pain when a patient is dying. But everyone should be against killing the patient as a means of eliminating pain.

But what about refusing treatment?

Some people think they are for euthanasia because they are for allowing a patient to refuse treatment for a terminal illness when that treatment is judged disproportionate. For example, some would say: “If living means I have to be hooked up on life-support machines for months and months, then I would rather die.” However, refusing treatment in this case is not euthanasia. If you have cancer, and you refuse another painful chemotherapy session, and then you die, the cause of death is the cancer, not the doctor or yourself.

We call it euthanasia when you or your doctor intentionally causes your death, before your death is caused naturally by disease or by old age. And this is something everyone should be against, in every circumstance. Here’s why:

This is an incredible story.

And that pro-life group former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson joined --Bryan, Texas Coalition for Life -- happens to be run by Shawn Carney, co-founder of the 40 Days for Life. A testament to the power of truth and prayer.

Check it out here.

Vous êtes cordialement invité au concert de Noël de Campagne Québec-vie avec la chanteuse Cyndia Quinn et ses musiciens. Jeudi le 10 décembre 2009 à 19h30 chez les Dominicains de St-Albert-le-Grand (2715, chemin Côte Ste-Catherine, Montréal).

La chanteuse présentera des chansons tirés de son album ainsi que des chansons de Noël traditionnelles.

Coût $20

Pour vous procurer des billets ou pour de plus amples renseignements, svp appeler (514) 344-2686, ou nous contacter par courriel.

***English***

You are cordially invited to our Quebec Life Coalition Christmas Concert with singer Cyndia Quinn and her musicians, on Thursday, December 10 2009 à 7:30pm at the Dominicans of St-Albert-the-Great (2715, Côte Ste-Catherine Rd, Montreal).

Tickets are $20

For tickets or for more information, please call (514) 344-2686, or contact us by email.

Songs will be in French. The concert will consist of songs taken from Cyndia's album, as well as traditional Christmas songs.