QUEBEC COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS SUGGESTS KILLING INFANTS WITH ILLNESSES OR DISABILITIES

⁣Description: OTTAWA — The Quebec College of Physicians is being slammed by advocacy groups for suggesting that it be legal to euthanize severely ill newborns.

Dr. Louis Roy, from the Quebec College of Physicians, told the Commons’ Special Joint Committee of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) on Friday that his organization believes MAID can be appropriate for infants up to age one who are born with “severe malformations” and “grave and severe syndromes” for which their “prospective of survival is null, so to speak.”

In a statement to the National Post, Inclusion Canada said it was “alarmed” by Roy’s recommendation that Canada “legalize euthanasia for infants with disabilities under the age of one.”

“Most families of children born with disabilities are told from the start that their child will, in one way or another, not have a good quality of life,” said Krista Carr, Inclusion Canada’s executive vice president.

“Canada cannot begin killing babies when doctors predict there is no hope for them. Predictions are far too often based on discriminatory assumptions about life with a disability,” she added.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said he does not see why doctors would agree to MAID for newborns if their chances of survival are next to nothing anyways.

“Why would you then have to give the child a lethal dose? If the child is not going to survive, the child can be kept comfortable and die naturally. There’s no reason for us to kill the child. There’s no reason for us to do this at all,” he said.