Pro-deathers Still Praising Eugenicists

No surprise here – pro-deathers getting accolades, that is. These kudos are for an old-school Canadian eugenicist. Don’t worry – we have many eugenicists in this day and age to replace her.

Canada honours prominent eugenicist

In bioethics, as in every field, reputations are kept aloft more by the volume of the applause than by the historical record, at least for a while. This seems to be the lesson from yet another honour burnishing the reputation of one of Canada’s most famous women, Dr Helen MacMurchy.

Dr MacMurchy (1862-1953) was named one of the 10 leading female physicians in the Western world in 1949 for her contributions to public health. And now the Canadian government has just designated her as “a person of national historic significance”.

However, as Don Butler reminded readers of the Ottawa Citizen, she was also “the most prominent promoter of eugenics in Canada” and was ultimately responsible for sterilising thousands of “feeble-minded women”, a policy which has left a legacy of grief and shame. more

More Pro-Death Media Spin In A Canadian Tragedy

Here’s more pro-death spin and awfulizing, this time from Canada.

Assisted-suicide advocate’s resolve bolstered by terminally ill friend’s early death

Meg Westley witnessed two people die.

One died painfully and slowly of the cancer ravaging her body.

Another was relatively well, but decided to hasten his death before Huntington’s disease took its terrible toll.

Both, she believes, were abandoned by Canada’s ban on assisted suicide.

“I think it’s barbaric that even though people want to go, we let them suffer on,” said Westley, a University of Waterloo communications professor and president of the right-to-die advocacy group Dying with Dignity.

“It is about compassion,” she said. “Give them the assistance so they don’t have to suffer if that’s their choice.”

Westley saw the devastating effect of not having a choice in Nagui Morcos. The Toronto man chose to end his life this spring to avoid an agonizing death from Huntington’s, the degenerative and incurable nerve disease that he watched claim his father. more

Canadian Murderer Now A Pro-Death "Expert"

There’s no end to the evil that is Robert Latimer. A monster that murdered his disabled daughter, he is increasingly being paraded as some kind of euthanasia expert by the pro-deathers. Sick, just sick.

Robert Latimer gets OK to travel to U.K. for panel talk

Robert Latimer will be allowed to go the United Kingdom to take part in a panel debate on end-of-life issues.

Latimer, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1993 death of his severely disabled daughter, Tracy, has been granted permission by the National Parole Board to attend the Oct. 18 discussion, which is being organized by the University of Oxford. more

Good Take On Current Canadian Assisted Suicide Issue

Here’s an interesting take on the current legal wrangles in Canada over assisted suicide.

Times have changed

In 1992, Sue Rodriguez was dying from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, sometimes called Lou Gehrig’s disease), a degenerative disease of the nervous system. She didn’t want to live once she could no longer enjoy life. Rodriguez knew by the time that happened she would be physically unable to kill herself.

She looked for a doctor who would construct a machine allowing her to commit suicide when severely disabled. But s. 241(b) of the Criminal Code says that assisting suicide, unlike suicide itself, is a crime. Any doctor who helped Rodriguez would risk jail. more

Assisted Suicide Perverts The Aims Of Medicine

Here’s a good, thoughtful piece opposing assisted sucide in Canada.

Physician-assisted suicide poisons the mission of medicine

Recent events suggest that the assisted-suicide movement has gained momentum; reports from the Royal Society of Canada, the Quebec National Assembly and the British Columbia Supreme Court all support legalization of physician- assisted suicide. But the case is not closed.

Confusion reigns. Doctors opposed to physician-assisted suicide are sometimes labelled as paternalistic, disrespectful of patients’ autonomy and blind to certain aspects of human dignity. These are inaccurate and offensive descriptions of who we are and what we do in the sick room.

The public must be reassured that the needs of dying patients can be met within current legislation and practices. It must realize that we are able to have conversations about halting futile life-supporting interventions; we are able to “unplug” ventilators and be a compassionate witness to death; we are able to relieve physical and emotional suffering with an increasingly sophisticated array of medications, up to and including progressive terminal sedation. All the while, we are not ready to act upon “requested death.” more