Euthanasia in canada statistics

 A public opinion poll by Angus Reid 26  July 2012, states that 80%  of participants  in Canada support  a doctor to assist a patient in ending their life, 75% of us believe doctor assisted suicide should be allowed and four out of five Canadians want Parliament to debate the topic of doctor  assisted suicide.

According to this survey , Canadians  accept  euthanasia  under two different scenarios :

1. If the patient is terminally ill and will die in less than six months; and
2. If the patient is expected to suffer a great deal of physical and mental anguish during that time.

Times have change , while many years ago euthanasia was seen as a crime, now it  means the end of  a person's suffering.Nowadays the majority of people are considering euthanasia to be the more humane conduct and help people because life should be a matter of quality not quantity.

http://www.dyingwithdignity.ca/database/files/library/Angus_Reid_July_2012_Poll_80_support.pdf

Section 241(b) The Criminal Code of Canada

241-Suicide

Counselling or aiding suicide

241.Every one who

(a) counsels a person to commit suicide,or

(b) aids or abets a  person to commit suicide

whether suicide ensues or not, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years.

R.S.'1985,c. C-46, s.241; R.S.,  S985,c.27 (1st Supp.), s.7.

Based on this law,any form of assisted suicide brands the accomplice as malicious.however for most instances these brands are false assumptions. these cases deal more with ending lives due to a feeling of human compassion and not wanting to see another person suffer.

Two of the most famous cases in  Canada that illustrates the terrible inadequacy of our  Canadian law on assisted suicide are " The Evelyn Martens' case and  Robert Latimer's case " , both were prosecuted for acts of compassion.

http://ethics-euthanasia.ca/case-study-evelyn-martens/

The Hippocratic Oath

 The Hippocratic Oath is an oath taken by doctors and other healthcare professionals swearing to  preserve and protect life above all else.In the original version,one of its most basic principles states that doctors must always cure patients regardless of any circumstances , but  the modern version written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna  states that doctors must always cure patients, but never harm them. Doctors have the obligation to preserve life, but should be this their only obligation? , what about the quality of life?. Dr Gerrit Kimsma  a general practitioner and a lecturer in medical ethics at the University of Amsterdam admits that in the case of euthanasia there is a conflict between two of his  goals as a doctor. Nowadays, doctors have to achive the goal of saving life and the goal of helping people who are suffering.He believes that helping people is the morally right thing to do. "My patients can be sure that I will not let them suffer unnecessarily alone.That is my goal and a duty  as a physician ".
"Over time the Hippocratic Oath has been modified on a number of occasions as some of its tenets became less and less acceptable.References to women not studying medicine and doctors not breaking the skin have been deleted. The much-quoted reference to " do no harm" is also in need of explanation .Does not doing harm mean that we should prolong a life that the patient sees as a painful burden? Surely, the "harm" in this instance is done when we prolong the life, and "doing no harm" means that we should help the patient die.Killing the  patient-technically,yes. It is a good thing-sometimes,yes. It is consistent with good medical end-of-life care:absolutely yes"

-- Philip Nitschke, MD
Director and Founder, Exit International
"Euthanasia Sets Sail," National Review Online

Taking Mercy: Euthanasia

Love is always connected with protecting. when we become parents, we sign an invisible contract in which we are committed to love and protect our children.
When my son born at 27 weeks of gestation with heart problem  I was devastated. I sat by his incubator watching how every three hours a nurse drew blood from his tiny feet while  he cried in pain.
It was the first time in my life the I understand the true meaning of a quote my mother always said to me " q me pase cualquier cosa a mi, pero no a ti" ( Let anything happen to me, but not to you.) I would wish to be in his place instead and have the nurse draw blood from me everywhere instead of him. As a parents, we would do anything to relieve our children from pain and not watch them suffer.As a parents, could there be anything worse than watching your child's health deteriorate day by day? Could a parent's love stretch so far as to find that the only solution to stopping their suffering is euthanasia?