A faith-based group of Sault residents lined Great Northern Road and Pim Street on a drizzly Sunday afternoon in an ongoing protest against Canada’s abortion laws.
It was a peaceful, prayerful 60-minute gathering, held near the intersection of Great Northern Road and McNabb Street, marking the annual Campaign Life Coalition’s Life Chain event.
The Life Chain event is held at approximately 4,000 locations across North America the first Sunday in October.
“We’re all about defending life, because we believe life is sacred,” said Life Chain Sault Ste. Marie co-coordinator Bill Murphy.
“Years ago there was legislation around abortion and it was going to be tight, with controls on it, it wasn’t going to be done for just any reason, but it’s morphed into a right that anybody can do with no controls whatsoever.”
“It’s still taking innocent lives and yet society’s gotten used to it…we don’t agree with this,” Murphy said.
In addition to Life Chain, a group of Sault residents gather every Wednesday at noon and every Saturday morning outside Sault Area Hospital to protest abortion.
Last year 157 people from various denominations took part in the local Life Chain event.
A similar number took part this year, from local Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic churches, the Salvation Army and City Bible Church.
This year’s local Life Chain participants had an additional concern on their minds.
The group is opposed to Canada’s legalization of doctor-assisted dying.
Doctor-assisted dying involves a patient self-administering the means of death through a lethal drug, whereas euthanasia involves a doctor administering a lethal drug.
Doctor-assisted dying was long forbidden in Canada as a form of homicide, but a Supreme Court of Canada decision in February 2015 overturned the ban.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, the federal government legalized doctor-assisted dying with its Bill C-14 in June.
The legislation states ”only patients suffering from incurable illness whose natural death is 'reasonably foreseeable' are eligible for a medically assisted death.”
Bill C-14 permits “medical practitioners and nurse practitioners to provide medical assistance in dying and to permit pharmacists and other persons to assist in the process."
Whether it be called euthanasia or doctor-assisted dying, certainly not everyone is in favour of it.
“Now we have something else to be concerned about,” Murphy told SooToday.
“After having years of being able to have the right to kill children, now legislation has come with the right to kill the parents,” Murphy said.
“In a culture that doesn’t value life, the killing will expand, and I’m very certain that we’ll go down the same road with euthanasia that we’ve seen happen with abortion.”
“We’ve seen in Europe that once you cross that line, then over time there’s an expansion of the killing by legislation,” Murphy said.
“In Belgium, they’re euthanizing children…with a parent’s consent, a child can be euthanized.”
“There will be abuses of this.”
“The right to die will become the duty to die, in some cases,” Murphy said.
“In some cases a parent could be made to feel like they’re being a weight on their family, it’ll be like ‘Mom or Dad, wouldn’t it be best if you ended it all?’”
“The pressure will be there, it will be subtle, but it will be there,” Murphy said.
“A lot of people think this is a good thing because they’ve seen suffering, and certainly death is an issue to be dealt with, but the consequences of crossing this line are going to be significant.”
Murphy and fellow opponents to doctor-assisted dying are inviting the public to a local November showing of The Euthanasia Deception, described as a 60-minute documentary featuring powerful testimonies from people in Belgium and other countries "devastated by mercy killing."
“It’s going to discuss the experience of Europe, and Belgium in particular, with euthanasia laws, what are the consequences that people experience, and it shows in more depth where we could be going,” Murphy said.
“I invite everyone pro and con, to come and have a discussion.”
“I think people with good sense should be concerned about this,” Murphy said.
The documentary will be accompanied by a question and answer session led by Alex Schadenberg, London, Ontario-based Euthanasia Prevention Coalition executive director.
“Alex is a high-calibre speaker,” Murphy said.
The event will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., Thursday November 17 at Quattro Hotel and Conference Centre at 229 Great Northern Road.