During 2008 elections, the state of California placed a constitutional amendment proposition on the state’s ballot. Proposition 8, or the California Marriage Protection Act, where “[o]nly marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” became law as of Nov. 5, 2008, and made “same-sex marriage” illegal in the state. Just over half of voters approved the measure. On August 4 of this year, San Francisco Federal Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the measure was unconstitutional.

A similar moral constitutional confrontation is beginning to rear its ugly head in the Canadian province of Quebec.

A substantial majority of medical physicians and citizens of the province strongly favor decriminalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide. Dr. Gaétan Barrette, president of Quebec’s Federation of Medical Specialists, stated that the practice is already taking place. “Eighty-one percent of doctors do see the practice of euthanasia given the circumstances in their practice,” he said. “They hear their patients, they see their patients, asking for it.”

The reality that many physicians in Quebec support the legalization of euthanasia is diametrically in opposition to the Hippocratic Oath which medical doctors traditionally take in order to acknowledge that they will practice medicine ethically. For example, the modern version of the third clause states (emphasis mine throughout):

I will follow that method of treatment which according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patient and will abstain from whatever is harmful or mischievous. I will neither prescribe nor administer a lethal dose of medicine to any patient even if asked nor counsel any such thing nor perform act or omission with direct intent deliberately to end a human life. I will maintain the utmost respect for every human life from fertilization to natural death and reject abortion that deliberately takes a unique human life.

Euthanasia is defined in the Oxford English Reference Dictionary as “the bringing about of a gentle and easy death for a person suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma.”

Even though self-inflicted suicide is no longer considered to be a criminal offense in Canada, Section 14 of Canada’s Criminal Code states that “No person is entitled to consent to have death inflicted on him, and such consent does not affect the criminal responsibility of any person by whom death may be inflicted on the person by whom consent is given.”

Despite the fact that the governments of several Western nations have legalized euthanasia under various guises such as “death with dignity,” “rights of the terminally ill,” “assisted suicide” and such like (the Northern Territory of Australia on May 25, 1995; Oregon, U.S., on Oct. 27, 1997; Belgium in September 2002; Luxembourg in February 2008), the action of “doctor-assisted suicide” is still plainly a criminal act in Canada.

Many of the special interest groups that favor such a move by the Quebec government see it as a clear opportunity to overturn Section 14 of the Criminal Code on the grounds of it being contrary to the terms of the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedom. If the lobby proves to be successful, these groups will have pulled off a political coup equivalent to Judge Walker’s ruling against California’s legally binding Proposition 8.

By examining the definition of euthanasia we can see that suicide, whether assisted or self-inflicted, is a form of murder, a sin clearly condemned by the Almighty God in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Request a copy of our free booklet The Ten Commandments for a better understanding of this law by which God seeks to teach us respect and sanctity for life.