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Poll shows more Canadians support right to die but courts, not politicians, likely to decide

Poll shows more Canadians support right to die but courts, not politicians, likely to decide

A new poll suggests more Canadians than ever support the right to physician-assisted death, but that the results are unlikely to move the political yardsticks.

The Ipsos Public Affairs poll was conducted in August for Dying With Dignity, which supports decriminalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

The survey of 2,515 people, more than double the sample for a normal national poll, found 84 per cent of respondents agreed with this statement:

“A doctor should be able to help someone end their life if the person is a competent adult who is terminally ill, suffering unbearably and repeatedly asks for assistance to die.”

The poll results were released on the eve of a landmark case scheduled to be heard next week by the Supreme Court of Canada that holds the potential to overturn the two-decade-old Rodriguez decision upholding the existing criminal prohibition against assisted suicide.

The case involves two B.C. residents who’ve since died but wanted an end to their suffering from degenerative illnesses: Gloria Taylor had ALS like Sue Rodriguez and Kathleen Carter, who suffered from spinal stenosis.

Taylor obtained special B.C. Supreme Court permission for assisted death while her case was being heard. She won there but the ruling was overturned on appeal. She has since died of her illness but her family is taking the case to the Supreme Court. Carter’s daughter took her mother to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal, but now is part of the challenge.

Right now only residents of Quebec have the prospect of assisted death under a new law scheduled to take effect next year, but it’s likely to face a federal legal challenge if anyone tries to use it.

The poll also revealed similarly strong support among those who identified themselves Christian or Catholic, among members of the health-care professions and, surprisingly, the disabled. Support cut across demographic groups regardless of age, income or education.

The results reflect a slow but steady growth in support for what proponents call assisted dying.

“Every time there’s a poll, the numbers increase,” Dr. Derryk Smith, a Vancouver psychiatrist and director of Dying With Dignity told Yahoo Canada News.

Religious opposition to assisted dying seems to be melting away in favour of common-sense thinking, he said.

“As we approach our final years, why would we want to spend our last six months in pain and misery with no quality of life whatsoever,” said Smith.

“People are going through these kinds of experiences with their relatives and questioning why we are continuing the way we have over the past hundred years.”

[ Related: Quebec passes landmark end-of-life-care bill ]

More health-care providers are coming round to accepting a role in helping suffering people to die, he said, and even the disabled, whose organizations vehemently oppose changing the law, appear to favour physician-assisted death if the poll is correct.

“In this poll, when you don’t speak to the leadership but you speak to the people who are disabled themselves, 85 per cent of them were in favour of assisted dying,” said Smith.

Conservative MP Stephen Fletcher, paralyzed from the neck down by an auto accident, welcomed the results of the poll.

“This is a topic that is of great importance to me and needs to be discussed openly by all Canadians and it needs to be done now,” Fletcher, who has introduced a private member’s bill calling for the practice to be legalized, said in a news release.

But while the poll numbers might seem encouraging to supporters of assisted dying, they really don’t change much.

Ipsos vice-president Sean Simpson said although the level of support is higher than before, it is not an astounding leap from figures going back two decades.

Past polling by the company has shown a fairly steady increase from the mid 70 per cent range in 1993 up to the current 84 per cent, he told Yahoo Canada News.

Public opinion on assisted dying has consistently ranged ahead of the willingness of politicians to tackle it, said Simpson.

“The issue has always been seen as fairly controversial when in fact it’s actually that it is more unpalatable politically than strong opposition to it,” he said.

“While support has increased a little bit over the last two decades but it’s not a sea change. It’s just that people are talking about it now and so it seems less taboo to have these discussions.”

What has perhaps changed, said Simpson, is that 51 per cent of respondents strongly agreed with the statement supporting physician-assisted dying, where in the past there would be more qualified support.

“They’re not wishy-washy about it,” he said.

Likewise, the 16 per cent who disagree are also staunch in their opposition and they tend to be the most vocal, Simpson observed.

[ Related: Right to die proponents welcome Supreme Court’s decision to revisit ban on assisted suicide ]

Indeed, groups representing the disabled quickly rejected the poll’s results.

The numbers won’t change disabled organizations’ opposition to any change in the law, Laurie Beachell, national co-ordinator for the Council Canadians with Disabilities, told Yahoo Canada News. Sanctioning assisted dying devalues the lives of disabled and puts the most vulnerable of them at risk.

Beachell and other advocates also questioned the poll’s indication that a large majority of disabled respondents supported assisted dying.

“This report should not be seen as an endorsement of assisted suicide, but as demonstrative of the effect of discrimination on people with disabilities,” Amy Hasbrouck, director of Toujours Vivant-Not Dead Yet, said in a news release.

“Ipsos only spoke to 94 people with disabilities. Their conclusions as to the opinion of the disability community cannot be taken seriously.”

The country’s largest physician organization also questioned the results when it came to health-care professionals. The Canadian Medical Association’s own survey of about 5,000 doctors last summer showed 44.8 per cent favoured legalizing physician-assisted death, reflecting the divisive debate still going on.

President Dr. Chris Simpson said in a statement to Yahoo Canada News the association has always said dealing with the end of life is a societal debate and the association recognizes the decision is up to Canadians.

“Important questions about safeguards remain to be discussed though,” said Simpson, who is in South Africa attending a conference. “Most importantly, this survey ignores the importance of ramping up Canada’s palliative care services and access.”

The poll indicated 91 per cent of Canadians agreed with the question that palliative care is not enough to alleviate drawn-out suffering but Simpson said it’s very much part of the end-of-life discussion.

“The CMA is a vocal proponent of the need for a national and comprehensive palliative care strategy,” he said.

The assisted-dying debate seems to be following the same arc as other divisive public-morality questions such as abortion and gay marriage, which governments feared to tackle lest they alienate a bloc of supporters.

Which means like those issues, it will be left to the Supreme Court, which upheld the existing prohibition against assisted suicide by only a 5-4 margin in 1993.

“That seems to be the way that it’s going,” said Ipsos’ Sean Simpson. “The courts are starting to have to step in for lawmakers who don’t want to touch these things.”

Smith noted the only remaining member of the high court who sat in that case is now-Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, who voted to strike down the law.

Politicians may be hoping the courts will let them off the hook, he said.

“But to me this is really an issue of what the population of Canada wants and is more appropriately addressed through the legislatures than through courts,” said Smith.