By Mike Mastromatteo The Interim Pro-lifers are undecided as to the impact of a Manitoba court decision that allows an elderly man to escape punishment in the assisted suicide of his terminally ill wife. Bert Doerksen, 81, of Winnipeg, admitted to killing his 78-year-old wife Susan in November, 1997, by placing her in the family car and leaving the engine running as [...]
TORONTO -- Physician-assisted suicide and the elimination of terminally ill or severely disabled patients run counter to the values of Canadian society, says the vice-president of the Catholic Civil Rights League. Speaking Jan. 22 at a debate on the legalization of euthanasia, lawyer Philip Horgan said Canadians should reject efforts to change the Criminal Code to permit anti-life practices. Horgan was opposed [...]
WINNIPEG -- Police charged a 79-year-old Manitoba man Jan. 29 with helping his ailing wife commit suicide. Investigators handed Bert Doerksen a summons to appear in court on a charge of counseling or aiding suicide, but did not take him into custody. He is scheduled to appear in court Feb. 12. "We feel it's in the public interest to lay a charge," [...]
Canadians deserve a say in how they will be treated on their deathbeds, says Wilbert Keon, a Conservative senator and leading heart surgeon. Dr. Keon says physicians have to make complex medical and ethical decisions in about four of 10 deaths, and we should all have a say in framing national guidelines to regulate those decisions. "When the time comes for a [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) - In a unanimous decision that will echo through hospitals and homes, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in late June that terminally ill people do not have a constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, whose wife died in 1991 after a long battle with ovarian cancer, wrote the decision. He said the idea of having someone [...]
Interim Special Dr. Nancy Morrison acted out of compassion when she ended a patient’s life with a lethal injection last November, relatives of the Halifax physician said yesterday. “He was gasping for air,” a family member who asked not to be named said tearfully outside Halifax provincial court. Other family members nodded in agreement. “He had about an hour left to live [...]
Washington (AP) – U.S. President Bill Clinton signed a bill April 30 banning use of federal money to support physician-assisted suicide – a practice that he said is wrong. “While I have deep sympathy for those who suffer greatly from incurable illness, I believe that to endorse assisted suicide would set us on a disturbing and perhaps dangerous path,” Clinton said in [...]
Where the parties stand on the life issues The Liberal Party In 1993, Jean Chrétien said that his government would not revisit the abortion issue. In doing so, he committed the Liberals to the status quo of lawlessness where pre-born children are concerned. The party has recently confirmed that a Liberal government will not entertain measures to re-criminalize abortion. In effect, therefore, [...]
WASHINGTON – Disabled people asked for help March 7 in protecting what one called their “imperfect lives” from assisted suicide. They addressed a session of a two-day international conference on assisted suicide, jointly sponsored by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, and the Center for Jewish and Christian Values. “The message of the current pro-assisted suicide [...]
Interim Staff Pro-life officials have serious reservations about right to die legislation now being debated in the Canadian Senate. Bill S-13, also known as a live-and-let-die law, was introduced by Liberal Senator Sharon Carstairs of Manitoba. The bill, which reached second reading in early March, would amend the Criminal Code to allow doctors to withhold or remove life support treatment from terminally [...]
It must be that Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer believes the best defence is a good offence. How else to explain his over-the-top reaction to the news that the Supreme Court of Canada had granted him a new trial in the 1994 "mercy killing" of his 12-year-old disabled daughter, Tracy? While the pro-life community has not always greeted Supreme Court decisions in glowing [...]
A Canadian disabled rights activist invited to address the U.S. Bishops' conference was hoping to include a visit with President Bill Clinton on his agenda. Mark Pickup of Beaumount, Alberta, will be in Washington March 7-8 to take part in the Life At Risk: A Closer Look at Assisted Suicide conference, sponsored by the U.S. Catholic bishops' conference, Doctor-assisted suicide is especially [...]
A suburban Detroit prosecutor has dropped all assisted suicide charges against Dr. Jack Kevorkian and two assistants. But a prosecutor in another country is not giving up. The charges stemmed from 10 suicides last year and were filed by former Oakland County Prosecutor Richard Thompson against Kevorkian, psychologist Dr. Georges Reding and Neal Nicol. The newly elected prosecutor, David Gorcyca, says his [...]
Washington –The U.S. Supreme Court January 8 appeared deeply skeptical about proposals to create a new constitutional right for terminally ill Americans to get the help of a doctor in committing suicide. During arguments on the right-to-die controversy, the high court did not take a firm position on the issue, but several justices expressed reservations about overturning existing state bans on doctor-assisted [...]
OTTAWA – A panel of nine Supreme Court judges has reserved its decision on granting a new trial to Saskatchewan farmer Robert Latimer, the man convicted of murder in the 11994 mercy killing of his 12-year-old handicapped daughter, Tracy. Latimer's defence team has asked for acquittal in the case, arguing that the police and the Crown attorney's office violated Latimer's constitutional rights [...]