Quebec minister proposes 'law of all laws' to include 'right' to euthanasia and abortion

On October 9, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette presented his draft of the "Quebec Constitutional Act, 2025" to the Québec National Assembly, and two of the 'rights' the draft seeks to protect are the right to be killed by euthanasia and the right to kill preborn children through abortion.

Key Takeaways: 

• The Quebec Constitutional Act 2025 would amend the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, making it a fundamental law — meaning in most cases, all other laws must comply.

• Quebec’s 2025 Constitutional Bill appears to be unconstitutional and would dangerously grant a ‘right to kill' via euthanasia and a 'right' to abortion.

• Statements made by Jolin-Barrette speak to a future in which doctors could lose their right to conscience protections and a world in which people with disabilities and illnesses could more easily be coerced into death.

The Details: 

Conflating 'end-of-life' care with euthanasia

In an effort to set Quebec apart from the rest of Canada, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette presented his draft "Quebec Constitutional Act, 2025" to the National Assembly. One of the many propositions, according to Jolin-Barrette in an interview with Ledevoir, is to “protect the right of Quebecers to die with dignity and to receive medical assistance in dying when their condition requires it."

Section 39.2 of the bill states this differently. It says, "Every person whose condition requires it has the right to receive end-of-life care, subject to the specific requirements set out in the Act respecting end-of-life care..."

End-of-life care and euthanasia are two entirely different things, but Jolin-Barrette appears to be conflating them.

While end-of-life care provides a person with comfort in their final days, euthanasia kills them.

The 'law of all laws' would take 'primacy' over others

Jolin-Barrette appeared before the National Assembly, stating, "The government's vision is clear: we want to protect and strengthen Quebec, we want to protect our soul, our values, our identity, our rights, and we want to strengthen our autonomy, our institutions, and our parliamentary sovereignty."

He called his bill the "law of all laws" that would have "primacy over any incompatible rule of law."

A timeline of legislation shows how the sanctity of life has been under siege in Quebec since February 2015, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Carter v. Canada that parts of the Criminal Code would need to change to satisfy the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This culminated in June 2016, when Parliament passed federal legislation allowing eligible adults to request medical assistance in dying. From there came the Superior Court of Québec's 2019 Truchon decision. In this, they found two areas of the law to be unconstitutional. On March 17, 2021, changes to the legislation were put into effect.

It revised eligibility criteria for obtaining MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) and the process of assessment, changed existing safeguards for eligible people whose natural death is considered reasonably foreseeable, and expanded the framework for federal data collection and reporting. 

Additionally, if approved, the bill would grant further assurance of the so-called 'right' to induced abortion — the direct and intentional killing of preborn babies. Jolin-Barrette stated his bill "entrusts a new responsibility to the Quebec state to protect the fundamental freedom of women to choose for themselves and to dispose of their bodies as they see fit by defending their freedom to resort to abortion."

"Never forget," he said, "that all it takes is a political, economic, or religious crisis for women's rights to be called into question. These rights are never acquired."

This is interesting wording, considering that every abortion quite literally disposes of the body of a preborn child, not the body of his or her mother. It is the life of the preborn human being that is intentionally ended.

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Why It Matters:

Jolin-Barrette’s statement that certain individuals may have a health condition that "requires" euthanasia is also discriminatory and eugenic.

No humans "require" a doctor — who takes a vow to heal — to kill them under the guise of healing them.

The Canadian government already stands accused of pressuring doctors to encourage euthanasia, because it saves the government-run health system money. Is the next step forward for Canada, or at least Quebec, to require certain individuals to die when the government deems them too sick or disabled to live?

Who defines this, and where does it end?

It seems clear that life itself is at stake in the province of Quebec. One of the first groups of people to be deemed 'unworthy of life' and killed by the Nazis was the disabled.

In the comment section of the article, one person explained, "That is already happening in Quebec, family/persons holding POA (power of attorney) have chosen, without knowledge/consent of 'individual' initiated/caused family member to be euthanized."

As for abortion, Jolin-Barrette called it a "freedom" for women to be able to kill their own children in the womb. This shows a complete lack of respect for an entire group of vulnerable and innocent human beings who are being denied their right and freedom to live. No one should be granted the "freedom" to cause harm and death to another human being based on convenience or desire. There is no true "right" to kill another innocent human being by abortion, but there certainly is a "right" to life.

If there exists a "right" to be killed and a "right" to abortion which are viewed as the "law of laws," it signals that there is at least one other current human right that is close to being taken away — the right to conscientious objection, or to decline participation in an activity that one believes to be in contradiction to one's own personal moral convictions. If there are 'rights' to abortion and euthanasia, then doctors may soon be forced to participate in them or face potential lawsuits for denying a person his or her so-called "right."

The Bottom Line:

A society in which women can choose to kill their innocent preborn children at will, and doctors can devalue and kill certain human beings based on their physical health status, is not a humane society.

When we question the value and right to life of both the preborn and those living with disabilities or illness based on the perceived significance of their existence, we have created a society that is unstable and unsafe.