The Supreme Court of Canada said today it will hear an appeal by the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) that could grant terminally ill Canadians the right to assisted suicide. The case seeks to allow seriously and incurably ill but mentally competent adults the right to receive medical assistance to hasten death under specific safeguards. Lawyer Grace Pastine, who will argue the case for the BCCLA, says the decision to hear the appeal is a victory for those who support the right to to die with dignity. "I'm feeling great now. This is an enormous relief, and I'm just so happy that now there will be an opportunity to argue this very important case in front of the Supreme Court of Canada," Pastine told CBC News on Thursday morning. Several witnesses in the case are very ill and the BCCLA applied to have it expedited. But the high court rejected that, and as is customary, it gave no reasons. That means the hearing to determine the future of assisted suicide in Canada will l
Ms. Taylor, the British Columbia woman who was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit that challenged laws against physician-assisted deaths, died unexpectedly Thursday of an infection resulting from a perforated colon. Ms. Taylor died peacefully and painlessly, as she had hoped, Ms. Pastine said. She was 64. In June, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that physician-assisted deaths are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and granted Ms. Taylor a personal exemption that would have allowed her the right to seek a physician-assisted death. The federal government appealed that decision, as well as the exemption that applied to Ms. Taylor. The B.C. Court of Appeal in August upheld that exemption. The lawsuit is now headed for the B.C. Court of Appeal and a hearing is scheduled for March, 2013. Four plaintiffs – three individuals and the BCCLA – remain part of the proceedings.
Nearly two decades after the country’s highest court ruled against a B.C. woman who wanted to be euthanized, another B.C. woman’s case has laid the groundwork for a challenge to Canada’s assisted-suicide laws. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association – along with a daughter who helped arrange her elderly mother’s death – announced the lawsuit at a news conference in downtown Vancouver Tuesday morning. In a notice of claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court, the parties argued that Criminal Code provisions against physician-assisted death are unconstitutional because they deny individuals the right to control their physical, emotional and psychological dignity.
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is awaiting a decision that could fast-track the lawsuit of a dying woman pleading for help to end her life before she gets even sicker. A judge is expected to rule Wednesday on whether Gloria Taylor can fast-track a lawsuit to gain the right to doctor-assisted suicide. The Kelowna resident, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is part of one of two challenges in B.C. to the laws against assistant suicide. The last challenge was 18 years ago, when B.C. woman Sue Rodriguez narrowly lost her bid to end her suffering from the same disease.
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association says it wants to challenge Canada's assisted-suicide laws alone. The BCCLA represents four plaintiffs seeking to change Canada's assisted-suicide laws, including a dying woman who won the right to have her trial expedited because her health is failing. Gloria Taylor suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. On Wednesday, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled Taylor's trial should be heard in November because of the woman's rapidly deteriorating condition. A similar lawsuit is simultaneously being brought forward by the Farewell Foundation. The group's co-founder Russell Ogden is lobbying to join the BCCLA's lawsuit if its own challenge is struck down. Ogden argues testimony from his application should be part of the civil liberties association's case because it's unfair to assess the quality of either challenge.
VANCOUVER – Forcing sick patients to suffer through painful, agonizing deaths without the ability to ask a doctor to help them end their lives is akin to “torture,” a lawyer told the British Columbia Court of Appeal on Wednesday as he argued for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide. Joseph Arvay, who represents several plaintiffs in a case that saw the law struck down last year, said the ban on assisted suicide leads some patients with terminal illnesses to end their lives early, because they know they won’t be able to seek a doctor’s help if they become debilitated later. He said the federal government is forcing those patients to make a cruel choice between suicide and suffering. “The choice for those people is, if they comply with the law, they will suffer, and for some of the people the suffering could be tantamount to torture,” Arvay told a three-judge appeal panel.
A US nurse has been convicted of aiding the suicides of an English man and a Canadian woman after seeking out depressed people online and urging the two to kill themselves. William Melchert-Dinkel, 48, was prosecuted over the hanging death of Mark Drybrough and the death of Nadia Kajouji, who leapt into a river. Prosecutors say he posed as a female nurse, advising them on suicide.
Kay, an 89-year-old resident of a North Vancouver nursing home, had travelled with family to Zurich, Switzerland, to a clinic called Dignitas. The mother of seven children was in a wheelchair, suffering from a terminal condition called spinal stenosis, which meant her body, as she said, was "totally collapsing."