Discussing Physician Assisted Suicide
Physician Assisted Suicide: Medical, Legal, Social, and Theological Aspects
Speakers, Moira McQueen, LLB, MDiv, PhD, Executive Director, CCBI
Rory Fisher, MB, FRCP(ED)(C), Professor Emeritus, Department of Medicine,
University of Toronto
All are welcome to attend this free event. We urge you to attend and to contribute some suggestions in developing a strategy that will help us to influence as many people as possible to work towards living life until its natural end.
The issue of legalizing Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) has been raised again by Bloc Québécois member Francine Lalonde, and the Bill is expected to have its first reading soon.
The recent legalization of PAS in Washington State shows that the Oregon experience is gaining some ground for the euthanasia movement. The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg permit euthanasia, and assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland. This should alert us to the moral, legal, social, and medical considerations that are at stake in Canada.
The Catholic Church is clear on its stance of protecting human life from conception until natural death, and recognizes the importance of the human need “to die well”: to have effective pain control and good palliative care, to see meaning in suffering, and to experience compassion and solidarity in our dying, instead of abruptly and prematurely terminating God’s gift of life.
Speakers: Moira McQueen, LLB, MDiv, PhD, Executive Director, CCBI; Rory Fisher, MB, FRCP(ED)(C), Professor Emeritus, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto