Canadian parliament overwhelmingly votes down euthanasia, assisted suicide bill
The Canadian Parliament turned down recently a bill to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.
In a landslide vote, the House of Commons rejected Bill C-384 by a vote of 228 to 59.
Immediately after the vote, two members said they mistakenly voted for the bill, instead of against it.
Conservative Member and Parliamentary Secretary for Health Stephen Fletcher abstained, stressing that he believed “the individual is ultimately responsible” for his fate.
Fletcher, a quadriplegic MP, is confined to a motorized wheel chair.
The bill, which was proposed by parliament member Francine Lalonde (La Pointe-de-l’Île, BQ) also irked Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs who said it might be used to hasten the deaths of the mentally ill, chronically depressed, elderly (who could be put to death for financial gain), bedridden and handicapped.
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told LifeSiteNews that the defeat of Lalonde’s bill means that Canada should now move on to finding better ways of offering true health care to Canada’s vulnerable patients.