Justice Lynn Smith The federal government has come out strongly against assisted suicide in an appeal against a British Columbia judgment declaring the ban to be unconstitutional. On Oct. 26, it filed its legal argument with the B.C. Court of Appeal, claiming that assisted suicide is prohibited in order to protect the most vulnerable members of society who might otherwise [...]
Massachusetts voters rejected assisted suicide in a ballot measure during the Nov. 6 American elections. It was defeated by a slim margin of 51 to 49 per cent. Earlier in the campaign, a September poll sponsored by the Boston Globe and conducted by the University of New Hampshire showed that 68 per cent of voters were in favour of legalization and only [...]
In an August 10 ruling, Justice Jo-Ann Prowse of the British Columbia Court of Appeals, the highest court in the province, permitted ALS patient Gloria Taylor to retain a constitutional exemption allowing her to end her life by assisted suicide or euthanasia. Taylor was granted the exemption in June by Lynn Smith of the B.C. Supreme Court. Prowse’s ruling also cancelled Smith’s [...]
The long awaited 2010 nationwide examination of the euthanasia law in the Netherlands was published in the July 11 Lancet. The study found: the number of euthanasia deaths has grown significantly since 2005 (4050 in 2010, 2425 in 2005); the under-reporting of euthanasia in the Netherlands has grown since 2005 (23 per cent in 2010, 20 per cent in 2005); there is [...]
Waiting until the second-last business day to file, Canada’s federal government appealed the June 15 decision of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lynn Smith overturning Canada’s ban on euthanasia and assisted suicide. Smith claimed that Canada’s Criminal Code prohibiting euthanasia and assisted suicide violated the Charter rights of those seeking assistance killing themselves and those who help them carry out their lethal wishes. [...]
On June 15, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Lynn Smith said that the Criminal Code prohibitions on euthanasia and assisted suicide were unconstitutional, finding that they “unjustifiably infringe the equality rights” of one of plaintiffs in the case, Gloria Taylor, who has Lou Gehrig’s disease and wants assistance to end her own life. Justice Smith also said the prohibitions unjustifiably violate the [...]
An important study of family members of 83 Oregon patients who requested physician-assisted suicide (PAD) shows that people who are being prescribed assisted suicide may not be experiencing significant symptoms of their disease. This study effectively proves that people are being given lethal doses for assisted suicide without fulfilling the reasons within the law. Because the study was so effective, almost no [...]
Euthanasia activist and convicted murderer Jack Kevorkian, 79, was released June 1 after serving eight years of his 10- to 25-year sentence for second-degree murder. Lawyer Mayer Morganroth argued his client’s health problems and good behaviour justified early release from prison. Kevorkian was charged and found guilty of the 1998 second-degree murder (by carbon monoxide poisoning) of Thomas Youk, 52, who had [...]
The Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops has released a statement clarifying the church’s position on euthanasia and assisted suicide. It is also calling on Catholics to question politicians about their stands on the issue. “Catholics, like all other citizens, have the right and duty to participate in the political processes of our democracy,” the bishops state. “Our elected representatives should be questioned [...]
Few involved in the Terri Schiavo saga emerged unscathed after her brother appeared as guest speaker Oct. 27 at the annual gala dinner of the Right to Life Association of Toronto and Area, held in the northern suburb of Richmond Hill. Bobby Schindler devoted much of his talk to answering the question of how a woman who was not brain dead, terminally [...]
Physician-assisted suicide in the state of Oregon will be officially referred to as “death with dignity” from now on, the Oregon Department of Human Services has decided. Responding to pressure from the pro-euthanasia organization Compassion & Choice, the DHS initially agreed to change “physician-assisted suicide” to “physician-assisted death,” part of an effort to employ “friendlier” language by the movement, in order to [...]
It seems that negative attitudes toward people with disabilities have recently grown from the theoretical ideas of Peter Singer of Princeton University, who believes that it is acceptable to kill disabled infants, into the actual practice of allowing infants with disabilities to be euthanized. In any other time in history, this was known as the crime of infanticide. It is now becoming [...]
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, attended the World Federation of Right to Die Societies biennial conference in Toronto and learned a lot about its strategies to bring about euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. This article is a shortened version of the full report that is available directly from the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. The World Federation of Right to Die [...]
A psychologist, who accompanied a friend to a Swiss suicide clinic, was before a professional appeals panel on May 17, accused of misconduct. The College of Psychologists revisited the complaint against Peter Marshall, who wrote a letter to the National Post in December 2004 describing his trip to Switzerland with his friend ‘Su’ who killed herself with the help of Dignitas, a [...]
Terri Schiavo - A Life That Matters by Mary and Robert Schindler et al (Warner Books, $32.95 272 pages). She's a human being," I cried out. "Nobody seems to notice." For well over a decade, these two sentences described the plight of Mary Schindler and her family. Medical experts had declared their daughter, Terri Schindler-Schiavo, to be in a persistently vegetative state. [...]