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N u m b e r 155 October 2014

The issues of euthanasia and assisted suicide will be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada and in a Québec court soon.

The Supreme Court of Canada is hearing the euthanasia case from British Columbia on October 15. This case is based on the June 2012 decision by Justice Smith in the Carter case. Smith decided that Canada’s law protecting people from assisted suicide was unconstitutional because it denied equality for people who are physically incap-able of killing themselves. Smith also decided that Canada needed to legalize euthanasia for similar conditions.

Smith was wrong. There is no right to suicide and Can-ada’s laws were designed to equally protect all Canadians from euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Justice Smith also claimed that in jurisdictions where euthanasia or assisted suicide are legal, there are no signs of abuse.

Smith ignored the facts concerning the abuse of the euthanasia laws in Belgium and the Netherlands.

In response to the recent pressure to legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide, Canada’s Health Minister, Hon Rona Ambrose responded by promoting better care. Ambrose stated in a CBC News interview:

“I know, in my family, my grandma had really good palliative care. And that made a huge difference to our family,”“So let’s talk about mak-

ing sure we have the best end-of-life care before we start talking about assisted suicide and euthanasia.”

Ambrose also stated that the federal government has no plans to introduce legislation on assisted suicide

The federal government has consistently argued that Canada’s laws protect vulnerable people from euthanasia and assisted suicide. In their Supreme Court legal docu-ments, the federal government argues that euthanasia is not a form of healthcare, and that it is the right of parliament to decide public policy on these issues.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition intervened in the Carter case at the lower court, at the BC Court of Appeal and now at the Supreme Court of Canada.

We will require $15,000 in donations to our legal fund by October 15 in order to cover our current legal costs.

Please consider making a donation today.

euthanasia Case in the Supreme Court

The EPC National Symposium will be held on Saturday October 4 (9 am – 5 pm) at the Best West-ern Ottawa - Gatineau Hotel and Conference Centre. The location is directly across from Parliament Hill, across the bridge from the National Art Gallery and beside the Canadian Museum of History.

The theme this year is: Uniting To Stop Euthanasia.

The Symposium will focus on what we can do to stop euthanasia in Québec and Canada, while creating a greater unified focus with people with disabilities and healthcare professionals.

The location will enable you to have a couple of days in the Ottawa area, walking distance to Parliament Hill and other national tourist locations.

Registration for the National Symposium is $99 regular or $79 for students and people with disabilities.

Book a room at the Best Western at: 1-800-265-8550.

National Symposium – October 4 – Ottawa – Gatineau

Hon Rona Ambrose

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Newsletter – 155 – October 20142

Last January, Frank van den Bleeken, who was con-victed of rape and murder in Belgium, requested death by lethal injection (euthanasia) for reasons of psychological suffering.

On Saturday, a Belgian news agency reported that van den Bleeken’s eutha-nasia request was recently approved. Van den Bleeken is the first Belgian prisoner, who is not terminally ill, to be approved for euthanasia. The Belgian news article reported that another Belgian prisoner who has currently served 27 years for murdering 2 people, has also asked to die by euthanasia.

Reuters reported that van den Bleeken requested euthanasia for psychological suffering because:

“he had no prospect of release since he could not overcome his violent sexual impulses and so he want-ed to exercise his right to medically assisted suicide in order to end years of mental anguish.”The van den Bleeken euthanasia death is complicated

by the fact that he was living in an aging psychiatric hos-pital and he had challenged the Belgian penal system for its overcrowding and unacceptable living conditions. The January 2014 article stated:

“In January, the court ruled in favour of three Bel-gian inmates and ordered damages be paid, citing a “structural shortcoming” that resulted in about 1,000 prisoners with mental problems being held in aging, overcrowded, inadequately staffed special prison wings.... Mr. van den Bleeken and Justice Minister Annemie

Turtelboom are now locked in a court fight over the issue. Mr. van den Bleeken’s still unresolved case is the

latest controversial example of applicants who are not terminally ill but suffer psychological pains.”

The expansion of euthanasia to include prisoners with psychological suffering represents the latest expansions of the Belgian euthanasia law.

In May, a Belgian nurse wrote an article about her experi-ence with euthanasia. She explained how euthanasia was being done in very questionable circumstances and how it is unacceptable to challenge a decision to kill a patient.

A study that was published by the BMJ (Oct 2010) concluded that assisted deaths were significantly under-reported in the Flemish region of Belgium. The study found that only 52.8% of assisted deaths in the Flemish region of Belgium were reported.

A study that was published by the CMAJ (June 2010) found that 32% of all assisted deaths in the Flemish region of Belgium were done without explicit request. A similar study that was published by the CMAJ (June 2010).

The study found that the demographic group most likely to die by an assisted death without request and not reported tended to be over the age of 80, incapable of consenting, had an unpredictable end-of-life trajectory and died in the hospital. The study concluded in their findings that:

“this fits the description of a vulnerable patient group at risk of life-ending without request.”The number of people who are dying by euthanasia for

psychological reasons is expanding.

A Belgian person was euthanized, for psychological reasons, after a botched sex-change operation.

Belgian twins, Marc and Eddy Verbessem, were eutha-nized, for psychological reasons, because they feared be-coming blind.

A woman with Anorexia Nervosa died by euthanasia, for psychological reasons, after launching a complaint that her psychiatrist sexually abused her.

Professor Tom Mortier wrote about the euthanasia death, in April 2012, of his depressed mother. Mortier stated:

“Why does my country give med-ical doctors the exclusive power to decide over life and death? What are the criteria to decide what “unbearable suffering” is? Can we rely on such a judgment for a mentally ill person?”

The Belgian experience with euthanasia should convince people to prohibit euthanasia. Sadly, those who support euthanasia ignore and cover-up the truth rather than recog-nize that legalizing euthanasia is a dangerous public policy.

Belgium Euthanasia and Capital Punishment

Frank van den Bleeken

Tom Mortier

Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Newsletter – 155 – October 2014 3

Former Minnesota nurse convicted of attempting to assist the suicide of Canadian teen

William Melchert-Dinkel, an ex-nurse from Minnesota, was convicted of assisted suicide in the death of Mark Drybrough from England and convicted of attempting to assist the suicide of Canadian teenager Nadia Kajouji.

An Associated Press article reported that:In his ruling, Judge Neuville said

Melchert-Dinkel provided both Drybrough and Kajouji with detailed information about how to hang them-selves, and that Drybrough followed his instructions. However, he noted that while the defendant gave Ka-jouji detailed and specific instructions about hanging, she did not follow them and chose another method. So the judge said Melchert-Dinkel was guilty only of at-tempting to assist her suicide.

Melchert-Dinkel was found guilty in 2011 of encour-aging the suicide deaths of Drybrough and Kajouji. He ap-pealed his convictions and in October 2012, the Minnesota Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal.

March 19, 2014 the Minnesota Supreme Court over-turned the convictions by deciding that encouraging a suicide is protected as free speech. At the same time the Supreme Court upheld Minnesota’s state law prohibiting assisting a suicide of a person.

The Associated Press article, stated that:Evidence in the case showed Melchert-

Dinkel was obsessed with suicide and sought out depressed people online. He posed as a suicidal female nurse, feign-ing compassion and offering step-by-step instructions on how they could kill them-selves. He acknowledged participating in online chats about suicide with up to 20

people and entering into fake suicide pacts with about 10, five of whom he believed killed themselves.

Melchert-Dinkel’s lawyer, Terry Watkins, told the media that they planned to appeal the decision.

Rice County prosecutor, Paul Beaumaster, said that the judge meticulously followed a Minnesota Supreme Court decision from last March that narrowed the state’s assisted suicide law.

The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition holds that it is a crime to counsel or assist a suicide. Most people contem-plating suicide need support. Suicide voyeurs, like Mel-chert-Dinkel, take advantage of people at a vulnerable time in their life.

People need to be protected from assisted suicide in all of its forms.

A survey of 600 physicians in Britain found that 60% opposed a change in the law to legalize physician-assisted suicide while 19% indicated that they would be willing euthanize or assist the suicide of a patient.

According to the article published in the Daily Mail:“a survey of 600 doctors by the Medix consultancy

found that 60% are against a change in the law to al-low physician-assisted suicide. This is a rise of 17 points from the last time the same

question was asked - just 43% were against a change in 2004. In the latest poll almost half of doctors said that in the

last six months they have had at least one patient state they would rather die than stay alive. Only 19% would be willing to help people die through

legalised physician- assisted suicide or euthanasia, al-though 37% believe it is already happening anyway.”The article also quoted Dr Tony Calland, chairman of

the British Medical Association’s (BMA) ethics committee, who said:

“There have always been strongly held views on as-sisted dying as this is a complex, emotive issue centred upon vulnerable patients nearing the end of their lives.Doctors have repeatedly expressed their opposition

to assisted dying when it has been debated regularly at the BMA’s annual conference that sets our policy, which since 2006 has been to oppose assisted dying in all its forms.Many doctors have first-hand experience of caring for

dying patients and believe that, rather than deliberate-ly ending a patient’s life, we should instead be focusing on building the very best of palliative care for those in distress.”

A recent survey of 4800 members of the Canadian Med-ical Association found that only 36.3% supported the legal-ization of euthanasia and 44.8% supported assisted suicide.

Even after the Canadian media has pushed for the legal-ization of euthanasia and assisted suicide, the majority of physicians remain opposed to intentionally causing the death of their patients.

Nadia Kajouji

Most Doctors oppose assisted suicide

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The East Coast Conference Against Assisted Suicide is being held on Saturday November 22, 2014 Double Tree Hotel in Windsor Locks, Connecticut near the Bradley International Airport.

This conference will be a unifying and educational effort by leaders and groups that opposed the assisted suicide bills in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

There will also be a leaders’ planning meeting at the same location on Friday November 21.

To register go to this website: http://assistedsuicideconference.eventzilla.net

Contact us at: info@epcc.ca or 1-877-439-3348

Here in Australia another World Suicide Prevention Day has passed uneventfully. Sui-cide Prevention Australia made some touching TV advertise-ments which made me cringe at the pain felt by those left behind. Their anguish is something we too often forget.

As Lifeline, the suicide prevention organisation, puts it, “Suicide loss can impact on physical and mental health. It’s important people bereaved by suicide are treated with compassion and support. They may experience: shock, numbness, denial; searching for reasons ‘why?’; guilt; an-ger/blame; despair; listlessness; stigma and shame; lone-liness and disconnection; depression; thoughts of suicide themselves.”

This message does not seem to be getting through to the media, however. An Australian Senator, David Leyonhjelm, published a libertarian argument for assisted suicide in On-Line Opinion shortly before Suicide Prevention Day. “It is fine to promote the treatment of depression and palliative care,” he wrote. “But it is not acceptable to claim their avail-ability removes the right to make a choice. If free people own their own lives, they must be free to end them if they wish.”

This is reckless. All suicides are regrettable; all suicides should be abhorred and we should seek to ensure that suicide prevention measures recognise this.

If we accept that suicide for the elderly or the ill is ap-propriate, we send a mixed message about the value of life. Diminishing the resistance to all forms of suicide by ac-cepting, as Leyonhjelm suggests, that some lives are “no longer worth living” implies that some suicides are good. This can never be the case in a compassionate society.

In its latest report the World Health Organisation says that one suicide occurs every 40 seconds around the world, with the highest rate amongst people aged 70 and over. This should make us think. Are we going to discriminate against the aged and infirmed in terms of suicide preven-tion; are we going to allow the former Nazi slogan of “life not worthy of life” to skew our objectives of reducing the number of suicides?

Newspapers often include the phone numbers of help-lines at the foot of articles about suicide for those for those who are troubled by suicidal thoughts.

If we take Senator Leyonhjelm’s arguments seriously and legalise assisted suicide, should the editors add more advice? “If you think your suicidal thoughts are rational, phone Exit International. If you are old, sick or fear loneli-ness, ring this number for a doctor who will help you end it all.”

The only truly consistent approach to suicide is to seek to prevent it in all its forms. Anything less is a failure; a failure of imagination, commitment and of vulnerable people who deserve the protection of the law and the sup-port of our society.

A compassionate society prevents suicide, not promotes it

Paul Russell

By Paul Russell, the Director of Hope Australia. This article was published on Sep 11, 2014 by Mercatornet.

Conference Against Assisted Suicide - November 22, 2014