We 'Tip-Toe' To Barrier Of Assisted Suicide

We 'tip-toe' to barrier of assisted suicide, Feb. 10, 2010.

Starving to death in a hospital bed is a horrible way to die, says an expert on the ethics of death, and it may be time to allow more overt ways of ending the lives of the terminally ill.

Wayne Sumner, a University of Toronto philosophy professor writing a book on assisted suicide, says while euthanasia is illegal in Canada, terminally ill patients or their families can refuse food, water and life-sustaining treatment.

"We tip-toe up to the barrier," says Wayne Sumner, who will speak about assisted suicide at UofT's Joint Centre for Bioethics on Wednesday afternoon.

"We peer over the edge, but seem reluctant to take that next step."

Sumner says there is no practical difference between letting someone starve to death, as is now done when feeding tubes are removed, and the more overt act of instructing a doctor to inject a lethal dose of medication to hasten death.

"If someone is refusing food and water, it's hard to see that the intention is anything but death," he says.

As such, he says, Canada should consider taking euthanasia out of the Criminal Code.

"You can choose the timing and the manner (of death). It's a more gentle way out," says Sumner, whose lecture will discuss how he came to that conclusion.

Not everyone agrees. Moira McQueen, director of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute, says every patient has the right to refuse treatment or food, and let nature take its course. "With euthanasia, you're not letting anything take its course," she says.

It is too big a leap to say that because people can refuse treatment or nourishment, they should actively take their own lives, she says.

"We all want to be compassionate, but we want to make sure we're doing the right thing, too."

A private member's bill to allow doctor-assisted suicide is currently before Parliament. Assisted suicide is allowed in three U.S. states – Oregon, Montana and Washington state – and in Belgium, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

A Swiss clinic, Dignitas, has become a destination for people around the world seeking physician-assisted suicide, with more than 1,000 people travelling to Zurich since the clinic opened 12 years ago – including 10 from Canada. The Swiss government is now considering restricting suicides by foreigners.

"As a country, we aren't interested in attracting suicide tourism," Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf saidin proposing the ban last October.

In Britain, top prosecutor Keir Starmer effectively decriminalized most assisted suicides last year by limiting the conditions under which his office would prosecute.

In Australia, the top court ruled last year that a nursing home must respect a resident's desire to end his or her own life by refusing food, water and treatment. The decision came after the home sought a court ruling on whether it would not be held culpable in the event of the man's death.

Paradoxically, Sumner says, provisions for assisted suicide in the Netherlands have led to terminally ill patients living longer. The option to end their lives when the pain becomes too much, he says, removes a stress and gives them strength.

"It eases their mind," he says.

By Stuart Laidlaw, in The Toronto Star