Terminally ill people who kill themselves risk missing future cures, a spokesman for a new Toronto-area-based group opposed to euthanasia said yesterday.
And Alan Ho, of the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide, said unscrupulous doctors might talk patients into ending their lives to disguise medical mistakes if Parliament alters the Criminal Code.
He said those are the top reasons for his group fighting a controversial private member's bill seeking legalized assisted suicide.
With MPS preparing for debate Tuesday of Bill C-384, debates are heating up in churches, newsletters and over the Internet.
The coalition, which Ho said represents over 100 faith groups including Christians and Muslims, plans a press conference in Markham, a Toronto suburb, Friday.
Half the patients who killed themselves in countries where assisted suicide is legal are young, he said. "Young people may not have the judgment to decide."
Bill C-384 is the third attempt -- the first to reach second reading -- by Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde.
In Toronto, Right to Die Society president Ruth Van Fuchs said Lalonde proposed her first of two earlier versions before being diagnosed with cancer.
Lalonde's bill borrows from laws in some European countries that permit assisted euthanasia when doctors decide a terminal patient is untreatable or their unbearable pain.
