CCBI News – CCBI Q&A Event; Long-COVID; MAiD in Canada; Moral Importance for all—Euthanasia; MAiD and Health, Homelessness

October 21, 2022

Dear Friends of CCBI,

CCBI – Hosts First In-Person Event since March 2020
November 23, 7 pm, Elmsley Hall (Information to follow)

Catholic Perspectives: Bioethics Questions and Answers

Do you have questions about bioethics that you have wondered about?

Where do you turn when, unexpectedly, you find yourself in complex circumstances and clarification of Church teaching is needed?

Please – Send us your questions! bioethics.usmc@utoronto.ca; or, bambi.rutledge@utoronto.ca

We promise an interesting discussion with Dr Moira McQueen and guest panellists.

Long Covid – Lessons

A Scottish and a Canadian Study both show how long COVID will affect others and their illnesses. For example, sufferers will occupy beds needed for other patients, will occupy professional staff in caring for them to the detriment of other patients, and so on. Not only does this mean extra wear-and-tear on health services, it also affects families and fellow workers in missed earnings, education, work productivity and causes extra burdens on others who are called to work extra time or take on heavier loads to compensate.

Besides that, further increases in COVID-19 cases are now forecast, along with exposure to flu strains that have been held at bay by mask-wearing, increased hand washing and social distancing over the last two years. It may still be wise to stay away from crowded places and close gatherings, or at least take precautions. Thousands of students from Quebec have learned the hard way, missing out yet again on their education and required to stay home after contracting COVID-19 soon after the school year began. In fact, Canada’s Public Health Agency is advising that “Early indicators are signalling a resurgence,” urging Canadians to prepare for “worst-case scenario COVID-19 variants that can evade immunity.”  It may be better in some ways, but it’s not over! Keep those masks?

MAiD in Canada

The moral importance of euthanasia is a topic that concerns Catholics, other Christians, those of other faiths and all who believe in God in a different way from those who believe that life ends – completely – at death. There is nothing more. FIN, as it says at the end of films in French. Yet even belief in God does not provide agreement about the moral wrong of choosing to end one’s own life and in involving other people to assist in doing so.

There is even less agreement about the meaning of dignity and sometimes little sense of God’s will being done, even among people of faith, far less in secular society. Yet in that society there are rumblings of moral discontent about some aspects of euthanasia. For example, The Globe and Mail has supported euthanasia legislation from the beginning and continues to do so. It has, however, raised a few red flags about allowing the procedure for those with mental illnesses, stating a concern raised by many anti-euthanasia proponents. Among other points, it wrote: “Might future therapies succeed for disadvantaged patients if they’re helped off the streets, given housing and a stable income? Can doctors ever say that psychiatric patients have no hope of getting better?” These questions demand more consideration and thoughtful, not party-line, responses from our legislators.

You may remember that Parliament, under Justice Minister David Lametti, voted to extend euthanasia for those with mental illnesses under certain conditions,  delaying the right to do so until February 2023, having asked for a fuller report on the situation by October 2022 (i.e., now). Many letters have been sent to MPs along with video presentations to make them and all Canadians aware of the implications and dangers of this political move and registering their dismay about such an extension’s being contemplated. If even those who on the whole support euthanasia balk at this move, how much greater is the dismay of those of us who do not support euthanasia under any circumstance! Where are Catholic and like-minded voices, in and out of Parliament? Some have registered their objections, but more people are needed, although in our democratic Parliament, one party’s ban on holding different moral views means that objectors are ejected from caucus, or side-lined, if they speak up. This, of course, is a much deeper moral issue in play that is shaping our society and it’s lurking in plain sight….

Last week I mentioned the likelihood that if Parliament does extend these procedures, then the principle of consent in Canadian law would be gravely eroded if people with serious mental illness are granted the equivalent of full capacity to consent to being euthanized. This will inevitably have harmful consequences to these people, such as unnecessary as well as unjustified death. This is far more important than harm to the legal system, in itself important, but Parliament seems to be embracing these sweeping changes with what seems to me to be a reckless disregard for human life – in the name of alleviating suffering!

Homelessness Now Qualifies for Euthanasia?

You may remember that a few months ago a woman requested euthanasia because the City was unable to make accommodation suitable for her health condition available. With all due sympathy to the woman in her predicament, this is a clear violation of MAiD procedures. Yes, her illness was grave, but it was not irremediable. It wasn’t lack of medical treatment that forced her hand, but the burden caused by lack of social services. Now, according to City News, “A 54-year-old St. Catharines man is in the process of applying for medical assistance in dying (MAiD), not because he wants to die, but because social supports are failing him and he fears he may have no other choice….” Mr Farsoud lives in a rooming house he shares with two other people, and it is currently up for sale. He is on social assistance and says he cannot find anywhere else that is affordable.

When asked if he would still consider assisted dying if he had stable housing, Mr Farsoud said he wouldn’t “even be close to it yet.” Like most of us, he doesn’t want to die – he wants to live! Surely, then, we are obliged to find social solutions to social problems, instead of shrugging our shoulders off the reality that some people might find themselves ‘choosing’ death in apparently insoluble situations. A partial response is surely for community services to provide better living conditions, not leaving people to think they will be cast to the curb and ‘have to choose’ death through euthanasia!

Sources:

After the pandemic, heavy burdens for a covid generation – The Washington Post Opinion
Spread of viruses in Quebec causes thousands of students to miss class (yahoo.com)
Public Health Agency watching COVID-19 variant evolution as fall resurgence looms – The Globe and Mail 
Globe editorial: Medical assistance in dying is a right that needs more limits – The Globe and Mail
Ontario man applying for medically-assisted death as alternative to being homeless – CityNews Ottawa

Pope Francis’ Intention for October

A Church Open to Everyone
We pray for the Church; ever faithful to, and courageous in preaching the Gospel, may the Church be a community of solidarity, fraternity and welcome, always living in an atmosphere of synodality.

Moira and Bambi