JOHN SMEATON, DIRECTOR OF SPUC: Canadian doctor's chilling first encounter with physicians who kill their patients

Tuesday, 9 February 2016

Canadian doctor's chilling first encounter with physicians who kill their patients

Alex Schadenberg, the executive director of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, has published an article describing the chilling moment when Dr Diane Kelsall (right), deputy editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, first encountered (in 1993) fellow health professionals, at a medical conference, attended by Queen Beatrix, in The Hague, who were explaining how to kill patients.

"Numerous attendees filed out of the session in silence, clutching handouts that described euthanasia protocols:

Administer this. If the patient is still breathing, administer that. If the patient’s heart is still beating, do this.

We stood in small groups, hardly able to grasp what we were reading. This was so contrary to everything we had been taught and everything we believed. How could physicians have crossed this line? When did “above all do no harm” turn into an algorithm for death?"

Twenty-plus years later, Dr Kelsall is chilled once again when she receives similar advice from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

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About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 42 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.