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Ending of Life Ethics Archives
Ending of Life Ethics
March 18, 2013
CCD AND CACL TO TESTIFY AT CARTER APPEAL (Assisted Suicide) HEARING
CCD and CACL, who represent persons with disabilities throughout Canada, will argue that the ban should remain in place, because assisted suicide reinforces disability discrimination and puts vulnerable persons at risk. Read more.
March 15, 2013
Assisted Suicide Case and Canadians with Disabilities Opposition
CCD and CACL oppose any change in the Criminal Code that would allow assisted suicide. Vulnerable persons, people with disabilities and the elderly will be put at risk if the law is changed. Read more.
March 1, 2013
Assisted Suicide Case and Canadians with Disabilities Opposition
CCD and CACL oppose any change in the Criminal Code that would allow assisted suicide. Read more.
January 11, 2013
Factum in the Carter Case
The Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) and the Canadian Association for Community Living (CACL) were granted intervenor status in the appeal of the Carter Case, which struck down Canada’s Criminal Code prohibitions against assisted suicide. CCD/CACL argued in their factum Criminal Code prohibitions on assisting suicide and on euthanasia are justified and in accord with the principles of fundamental justice. CCD and CACL requested an order that the appeal be allowed and the trial judgement set aside. Following directions from the Court, CCD and CACL restricted their factum to arguments based upon Section 7 (Security of the Person) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Another intervenor, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition was directed by the Court to focus on Section 15 (Equality Rights) arguments. Read more.
November 4, 2012
Frequently Asked Questions About Assisted Suicide
Rhonda Wiebe responds to some frequently asked questions about assisted suicide. Read more.
November 4, 2012
Rhonda Wiebe Debates Assisted Suicide
The Conference Board of Canada held a Summit on Sustainable Health and Health Care in Toronto, Ontario. On 20 October 2012, as part of the program, the Conference Board organized a debate of the motion that end-of-life decisions belong to the individual. The Conference Board of Canada invited Rhonda Wiebe, the Co-chair of CCD’s Ending of Life Ethics Committee to argue against the motion. The other participants were: Moderator: Ralph Benmergui, Senior Advisor to the President, Sheridan College; Arguing for the motion: Wanda Morris, Executive Director, Dying with Dignity Canada; Daniel Weinstock, Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University. Arguing against the motion: Bernard J. Lapointe, Eric M. Flanders Chair in Palliative Care, McGill University. Rhonda shared her speaking notes with CCD and these are shared below. Read more.
July 23, 2012
CCD Ending of Life Ethics Committee Co-chair Rebuts Arthur Schafer
Arthur Schafer’s portrayal of comments on the merits of physician-assisted suicide need challenging. Schafer, like many other supporters of physician-assisted suicide (also known as “doctor prescribed death”) does not seem to have considered the wider issues facing Canadians with disabilities, including the ongoing social prejudice and discouraging lack of living supports that we encounter on a daily basis. Read more.
July 13, 2012
How about the right to cry for help?
In this article, Amy E. Hasbrouck comments, "The B.C. Supreme Court has chosen not to listen very closely to disability-rights advocates with more than 20 years of experience battling discrimination; instead, the court relied on the stories of people who have accepted the view that disability is undignified, and that people with disabilities should be given a streamlined path to death whenever they want it and however they want it." Read more.
June 29, 2012
Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), 2012 BCSC 886
Prohibition, not safeguards, is the correct answer to the assisted suicide question. Read more.
June 15, 2012
Canadians with Disabilities Dismayed by BC Court Approval of Assisted Suicide
Today, the Supreme Court of British Columbia handed down its decision in the Carter case, opening the door for assisted suicide in Canada. Canadians with disabilities are disappointed by the Judge’s decision. There is a concern that vulnerable people will be put at risk if the Criminal Code provisions against assisted suicide are struck down. The Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) urges the Government of Canada to appeal this decision. Canadians who are concerned with this decision should write the Minister of Justice and encourage an appeal of this decision to the Supreme Court. Read more.
March 30, 2012
Global's "Taking Mercy" Portrays People with Disabilities as Suffering and Subhuman; CCD Seeks Redress
The Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD), a national human rights organization of people with disabilities, challenges Global, to offset the harm it has done to people with disabilities, by running a follow-up to its “Taking Mercy” media blog. CCD will also be launching a formal complaint about Global’s coverage. Read more.
March 26, 2012
CCD's Response to "Taking Mercy" (Global 16x9; March 16, 2012)
We are challenging Global, in the name of journalistic balance, to stage a follow-up episode featuring persons with disabilities who want to live and who see a danger in opening up the debate on euthanasia. Only good can come from providing an opportunity for a broader, fairer public discourse.
June 9, 2011
Video: Who Chooses? End of Life Decision-making and People with Disabilities
Manitobans with disabilities discuss their concerns about how end of life decision making occurs in their province. Read more.
June 16, 2010
Deadly Compassion
People with disabilities are not strangers to the fact that nondisabled people cannot imagine life with a disability. They tell us that they would rather be dead than living with a disability. This is because disability is equated with pain, suffering, and dependency. At times, this attitude translates into a deadly compassion, where it is seen as a kindness to help a person with a disability to die. As a result, people with disabilities are being harmed. Today, two Canadians with disabilities, Rhonda Wiebe and Jim Derksen, appear before the House of Commons Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care to explain how deadly compassion puts us in harms way and to suggest how to detoxify the medical care and public policy environment, as both are affected by this insidious stereotype. Read more.
July 24, 2009
Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD) Opposes Bill C-384
The COUNCIL OF CANADIANS WITH DISABILITIES (CCD) believes that everyone who supports disability rights should oppose Bill C-384 which would legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide and put Canadians with disabilities at risk! Read more.
Latimer
June 4, 2008
Tracy Latimer, the Victim; Robert Latimer, the Murderer
CCD explains why people with disabilities are concerned about Latimer's release from prison and his stated intentions to clear his name. The disability community is concerned about Latimer's potential to act as a catalyst, mobilizing pro-Latimer public sentiment that has been dormant since the Supreme Court sent him to prison back in 2001. Any climate of permissiveness is frightening for persons with disabilities because they worry it would leave them at the mercy of caregivers who think they know best. Read more.
February 16, 2007
An Open Letter to Prime Minister Harper
October 18, 2002
Action Alert Re: United Church Observer
December 28, 2001
We all LIVE under the same SKY! WE all LIVE under the same LAW!
April 13, 2001
The Bell in Hadamar
March 26, 2001
The Toll Mounts: Another Child Killed
February 2, 2001
Responding to Concerns
January 18, 2001
Supreme Court Decides Against Robert Latimer
November 10, 2000
Provincial Museum of Alberta Promotes Murder of Disabled Children Says ACL Web Site
June 13, 2000
Used Foot Wear
Euthanasia/Assisted Suicide
April 23, 2013
Prejudice Erodes Free Choice in End of Life Decision-making
Rather than a steady diet of the pathos of Susan Griffiths’ story, Free Press readers would be better served by an informed discussion of how cultural practices toward disability affect end of life choices; the need for procedural safeguards if assisted suicide is decriminalized and how decriminalization of assisted suicide will not disrupt the power imbalance between doctors and patients to the point where the Susan Griffiths of the world will receive assisted suicide on demand. Read more.
April 23, 2013
Suicide Celebration Instead of Suicide Prevention
23 April 2013, WINNIPEG, MB – According to media reports, Susan Griffiths’ assisted suicide will likely occur on Thursday (25 April 2013) at a Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland. Members of the Canadian disability community, who oppose assisted suicide, are available to discuss their concerns about assisted suicide with the media on Wednesday (24 April 2013) and Thursday (25 April 2013). Their contact information is listed below. Read more.
April 3, 2013
Canada's MPs Hear from CCD about Our Opposition to Assisted Suicide
The Council of Canadians with Disabilities (CCD), a national organization of men and women with disabilities, working for an accessible and inclusive Canada, applauds the Attorney General of Canada for appealing the decision in the Carter case, which struck down Canada’s prohibitions against assisted suicide. Read more.
February 5, 2013
DISABILITY RIGHTS ACTIVISTS QUESTION EFFORTS TO LEGALISE ASSISTED SUICIDE DURING SUICIDE PREVENTION WEEK
While Quebec marks suicide prevention week from February 3-9, disability rights activists question whether it’s appropriate for the Marois government to table legislation to legalise assisted suicide and euthanasia. Read more.
January 10, 2013
Please Oppose "Assisted Suicide"
In a video presentation, Rhonda Wiebe, Co-chair of the CCD Ending of Life Ethics Committee, explains why legalized assisted suicide puts people with disabilities at risk. Read more.
November 17, 2011
CCD hopes court will rule no on killing
Legalized assisted suicide is a recipe for lethal abuse. Read more.
June 29, 2010
Canadians with Disabilities: We Are Not Dead Yet
On 16 June 2010, two Canadians with disabilities, Rhonda Wiebe, Co-chair of CCD's Ending of Life Ethics Committee, and Jim Derksen, a Committee Member, appeared before the Ad Hoc Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care to present CCD's brief "Canadians with Disabilities: We Are Not Dead Yet". Read more.
June 15, 2010
Canadians with Disabilities--We Are Not Dead Yet*
"I would rather be dead than live with a disability," is a sentiment that people with disabilities, particularly those with severe disabilities, hear from people without disabilities. Such a comment rests on an incorrect assumption that the quality of life is poor when you have a disability. Incorrect assumptions about quality of life have the power to trigger responses that harm people with disabilities. If a simplistic approach is applied when developing end of life policy, the long term result will be systemic discrimination against people with disabilities who are seriously ill or at end of life.
In 1996, CCD passed a resolution stating "…The CCD opposes any government action to decriminalize assisted suicide because of the serious potential for abuse and the negative image of people with disabilities that would be produced if people with disabilities are killed with state sanction…" CCD explains the rationale for its opposition to legalized assisted suicide and shares recommendations focused on staunching the forces that cause Canadians to believe that assisted suicide is a necessary option.
Read more.
December 2, 2009
Letter to the Editor: Re: Locked in Patients Humanity for the Trapped (25 November 2009)
Misdiagnosis of “locked-in” patients as being in a vegetative state is one reason why doctors should not have exclusive control over end of life decision making: Like all human endeavors, the practice of medicine is affected by limitations in knowledge and cultural understanding of human behavior. Read more.
July 24, 2009
An Open Letter to Members of Parliament RE: C384
July 24, 2009
Fast Facts About Bill C-384
What does Bill C-384 do? Bill C-384 would legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada. Read more.
Jim Derksen views inaccessible York Street Steps in Ottawa. CCD intervened in the Brown Case, which challenged an inadequate accommodation developed for the Steps.
The Latimer Case
The Latimer case directly concerned the rights of persons with disabilities. Mr. Latimer's view was that a parent has the right to kill a child with a disability if that parent decides the child's quality of life no longer warrants its continuation. CCD explained to the court and to the public how that view threatens the lives of people with disabilities and is deeply offensive to fundamental constitutional values. Learn more.