CCBI News: Survey—Proposed Advanced Requests for MAID; World Day of the Sick

February 10, 2025

Dear Friends of CCBI,

Health Canada: Advance Requests for MAID

Health Canada’s consultative survey asking for comments on proposed Advance Requests for MAID will close on February 14. There is still one week to study the survey and respond. The document (the form is in the link below) states:

This national conversation is another step to ensure that the framework for MAID in Canada:

• reflects the evolving needs of people in Canada
• protects those who may be vulnerable
• supports autonomy and freedom of choice

The danger in responding to the survey is that, without careful wording, it can look as if a person is actually in favour of euthanasia/MAID in general but has reservations only about its extension. As those who find all euthanasia practices morally wrong and unacceptable, we want to be clear in reiterating to government that euthanasia is wrong, intrinsically wrong, and any extensions will also be wrong, inevitably.

On Monday, CCBI sent you a way of dealing with this danger by forwarding a related document from the CMDA (Christian Medical and Dental Association) which guides people through the Health Canada survey and suggests important and thoughtful ways to respond to certain questions.

The Association’s recommendations are clear and helpful, and we strongly advise you read it if you are planning to complete the survey, which we also strongly recommend! (See the link to the CMDA document below). Here is an important section of their recommendations:

While it may be challenging for many of you due to the nature of the content, we advise you to carefully read through the questions and provide your own answers. We have provided ours in order to highlight some of the challenges of the questionnaire.

• Q1, Q2 (a & b) Strongly oppose
• Q3 There are many excellent options
• Q 4 Not at all important
• Q 5 2nd, 3rd, 4th box are best
• Q 6 Using your own words, take the opportunity to express your concerns about potential abuses and the harm that would be done should this be made legal.

The CMDA suggests many examples of this harm (e.g., ableism, pressure on vulnerable people considering their future quality of life, fear of being a burden in the future, fear of personal diminishment, etc.) and asks those responding to the survey to think about these and other possible harms, while suggesting they do not simply copy the wording but complete the form in their own wording. We thank the CMDA for its careful thinking, since it is so important that those of us supporting the Culture of Life never give the impression that any form of euthanasia is acceptable while still wishing to take the opportunity to state our opposition both to MAID and any proposed extensions to the existing law.

Survey Article on Euthanasia

Along the same lines, we were alerted to an interesting article in “The Hub” reminding us that the provision regarding MAID solely for mental illness will be brought before Parliament again in March 2027. The author writes:

So the issue is already scheduled on a future Parliament’s agenda. Canada’s next government should take it as an opportunity to reconsider Canada’s entire MAID framework, which has little in the way of meaningful restrictions, safeguards, oversight, or enforcement.

For starters, Parliament should not only reinstate the crucial end-of-life criterion but also define it, as in the U.K. bill, to mean a prognosis of six months or fewer to live.

This is an attempt to tighten MAID’s application, not an acceptance of its acceptability. The article decries the apparent ease with which the Canadian Justice Department and Parliament have dispensed with original ‘safeguards,’ gradually opening up wider possibilities which will most likely result in ‘choice,’ a subjective criterion which defies any semblance of moral and legal objectivity. It calls for a re-instatement of a specific prognosis of death.

We still have to be careful that in refusing extensions of MAID but calling for restrictions that we are not seen as supporting MAID in principle. We are not saying that MAID is acceptable if robust restrictions are in place. Rather, since MAID is on the Statute Books, we can call for its abolition bit will have more success in restricting its application while working for the former outcome. Any further extension of MAID will make it even more engrained in society, and anything we can do to prevent that is a step in the right direction.

CCBI’s view has always been that political moves call for a political response informed by Catholic teaching. Please read the survey and make an informed response through understanding what the CMDA and this NEWS recommend! Then contact your MP, The House of Commons, the Justice Department, express yourself on social media, and so on. We have a voice!

World Day of the Sick

Message of His Holiness Pope Francis for the 33rd World Day of the Sick, February 11, Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes:

“Hope does not disappoint” (Rom 5:5) but strengthens us in times of trial

We encourage you to read Pope Francis’ own words: 33rd World Day of the Sick 2025 | Francis

Pope Francis links his message for the sick with the Jubilee Year of Hope, recognizing that these words, “hope does not disappoint,” can “…prove perplexing, especially for those who are suffering.” He goes on to show three ways in which God remains close to them: seeing their suffering and sickness as an encounter with the Lord, seeing them as gifts that make them aware that hope comes from the Lord, and realizing that “… places of suffering are also places of sharing and mutual enrichment,” where we learn to have hope, faith and love.

The Pope reminds those who are ill and those who tend to the ill that they play an important part in this Jubilee Year as a sign for everyone in the beautiful words as: “A hymn to human dignity, a song of hope!” (Spes Non Confundit,11)

Sources

Share your thoughts: Advance requests and medical assistance in dying – Canada.ca
A_SAMPLE_RESPONSE_TO_THE_FEDERAL_GOVERNMENT_SURVEY_ON_ADVANCE_DIRECTIVES_Jan_23_2025.pdf
John Sikkema: What have we learned from 10 years of MAID in Canada? – The Hub
33rd World Day of the Sick 2025 | Francis

Pope Francis’ Intentions for February

For vocations to the priesthood and religious life
Let us pray that the ecclesial community might welcome the desires and doubts of those young people who feel a call to serve Christ’s mission in the priesthood and religious life.

Moira and Bambi