Oct 11, 2016 Newsletter

While medical assistance in dying is now legal and available for some, too many hurdles remain and are causing too many Canadians to endure needless suffering.

The biggest challenge here in BC might be the fact that many religious hospitals (who receive around $1 billion in public funding) are refusing to even allow conversations to happen about a patient's legal right to an assisted death.

This is why Dying With Dignity Canada is asking you to write an email to Premier Christy Clark and Health Minister Terry Lake, asking them to remove this unjust barrier.

The other barrier is the restriction put in place by Bill C-14 that restricts access to those whose natural deaths are "reasonably foreseeable."

We spoke against this at the time and now BCHA Honorary Member Gary Bauslaugh has launched a petition to repeal that section of the law.

Visit our website to read more about these two easy actions and then:

SEND AN EMAIL

SIGN THE PETITION

Our letter in The Province

Earlier in the summer, we shared with you the story of Byron Wood, an atheist we've supported in challenging employer and court requirements that people suffering from substance use issues attend the religious-based AA program.

This week, The Province covered Byron's story on the front page and published our letter on Friday.

Here's a piece of what we said:

But beyond the constitutional arguments, the simple fact is that AA has never been scientifically shown to work. To help people suffering from substance use issues, we must focus our efforts on treatments based on the best available evidence.

Read more on our website and if you want to help advocate for more secular and evidence-based options for addictions treatment, please share these stories and comment on The Province's website.

Member survey

Last week, we launched a survey to get your feedback on what our priorities should be and how we can better serve you and the broader secular community in BC.

If you haven't already, please take a couple minutes to let us know what you think.

We'll keep the survey open for a couple more weeks before we begin to collate the answers.

Volunteers needed

Do you have some spare time or a particular skill or talent that could help advance our work?

We're currently looking for a few people to help with produce our podcast, do some research for our campaigns and write for our blog (including reviewing books we receive).

If these sound interesting to you, fill out our volunteer form.