Quebec’s euthanasia proposal means 'active killing by doctors': leading bioethicist
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QUEBEC, February 15, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of the top American bioethicists has slammed Quebec’s push to legalize euthanasia, saying it will turn doctors into killers and establish broad “categories of the killable” that will apply to practically anyone seeking death for any reason.
“Quebec wants to lead Canada off the moral cliff already leaped off of by Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland,” wrote Wesley J. Smith on his blog Human Exceptionalism last week.
Smith was reacting to Quebec’s Select Committee Dying With Dignity Report released last March.
The Committee refers to euthanasia as “medical aid in dying.” Bioethicists define euthanasia is an intentional act that causes someone’s death.
The Quebec Committee states in its report that the “medical aid” in dying “involves an act performed by a physician in a medical setting following a free and informed request made by the patient himself.”
Smith pointed out that “aid in dying” is simply a euphemism for “active killing by doctors.” He suggested that if the Committee’s recommendations are followed, then “every Quebec physician will be conscripted to participate in homicide as a condition of practicing medicine.”
“That would make every doctor in Quebec a potential accomplice in homicide,” he said.