Alex Schadenberg The Supreme Court of Canada has made an activist decision by giving physicians the right in law to cause the death of people by euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Court has made an irresponsible decision, what is more, by using imprecise and subjective language, leaving many issues to be determined by Parliament; without objective criteria the decision sets [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman With the precedent-shattering ruling in Carter v. Canada on Feb. 6, nine robed dictators on the Supreme Court of Canada not only struck down the longstanding ban on physician-assisted suicide in the Criminal Code: they also delivered a lethal blow to democracy and the rule of law in Canada. Consider the evidence: Gloria Taylor, the now [...]
“Fear not,” Dingwall said, when I complained about the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the law against physician-assisted suicide. “What do you mean ‘fear not’?” I replied. “The learned judges are turning compliant doctors into legally approved merchants of death.” “They turned into that when the unlearned politicians legalized limited abortion and the Supreme Court removed the limits.” “In both cases,” I conceded, [...]
“The Supreme Court is naïve to think that assisted suicide will not be abused, when abuse already occurs ... Giving doctors the right to cause the death of their patients will never be safe and no amount of “so-called safeguards” will protect those who live with depression or abuse. There will always be people who will abuse the power to cause death [...]
The first appearance of the word “euthanasia” in English occurs in Francis Bacon’s discussion of incurable diseases. He exhorts doctors to tend to the terminally ill, for the “office of the physician” is “not only to restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolors,” even when it may only “serve to make…de euthanasia exteriore.” That doctors should assist their suffering patients in [...]
The Supreme Court of Canada’s recent declaration that our country’s prohibitions against euthanasia and assisted suicide “unjustifiably infringe” on the rights articulated in Section 7 of the Charter – those rights, ironically, to “life, liberty and security of the person”– is a flagrant affront to the will of the people. As recently as 2010, our elected officials rendered a clear and firm [...]
Taylor Hyatt Dear Supreme Court Justices: On Feb. 6, you unanimously ruled that existing prohibitions against assisted suicide be struck down. In their place, three recommendations were made for Parliament to propose new legislation: (1) the person requesting “assisted death” must be a competent adult who consents to ending their life, (2) they must have a “grievous and irremediable” health [...]
On Feb. 6, the Supreme Court of Canada threw out sections of the Criminal Code prohibiting euthanasia and assisted-suicide, saying they unjustifiably infringe the Charter rights of individuals who might consider killing themselves and would want assistance at the chosen moment of death. Canada joins the ranks of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Colombia, Luxemburg, and the American states of Oregon and Washington, [...]
Hugh Scher of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition applauds decision. The pro-euthanasia lobby group Dying with Dignity has been stripped by the Canada Revenue Agency of its charitable tax status. Dying with Dignity was created in 1982 and had charity status from the beginning. In Canada, charities are allowed to allot 10 per cent of their financial and time resources to [...]
A Conservative and Liberal senator have teamed up to jump-start the stalled debate on MP Steven Fletcher’s euthanasia and assisted-suicide bill. Senators Larry Campbell (Liberal) and Nancy Ruth (Conservative introduced a private member's bill in the Senate that would legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide. Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth and Liberal Senator Larry Campbell, both Paul Martin appointees, introduced Bill S-225, [...]
As the legalization of assisted suicide gets debated, all levels of government in Canada are supporting suicide prevention programs. On Dec. 14, 2012, Private Member’s Bill C-300 sponsored by Conservative MP Harold Albrecht (Kitchener-Conestoga) was signed into law. It calls on the establishment on a Federal Framework for Suicide Prevention. In 2011, the Toronto Transit Commission launched “Crisis Link,” a campaign in [...]
On Oct. 10, the British Columbia Court of Appeal upheld Canada’s Criminal Code provisions outlawing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide when it overturned a lower court’s 2012 decision striking down the prohibition. On June 15, 2012, Justice Lynn Smith said the prohibition on assisted-suicide discriminated against people with disabilities in a case brought forward by Gloria Taylor, a woman diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s [...]
Dr. Donald Low became a public figure during the Toronto SARS crisis of 2003 when, amid innumerable news conferences, the staid and reassuring microbiologist became a familiar face. He returned to the public’s mind last month after a video was released following his death at age 68. In this video, recorded just one week before he succumbed to natural causes, Low makes [...]
The Oregon suicide rate has been increasing since 2000, three years after assisted suicide was legalized. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that the suicide rate among 35 to 64 year olds grew by 49.3 per cent in Oregon from 1999 to 2010 compared to a national increase of 28 per cent. In 2012, 709 Oregonians committed [...]
A woman from Montreal died by assisted suicide in Switzerland on April 25. Susan Griffiths, 72, suffering from multiple system atrophy, a rare degenerative disease without remission that causes significant disabilities, died at the Dignitas assisted suicide facility in Zurich. Because assisted suicide is illegal in Canada, Griffiths travelled to Switzerland, the only country that gives the procedure to non-residents. The law [...]