People who might never have known who their biological mother or father was will have that opportunity now that a B.C. Supreme Court judge has declared unconstitutional the legislation that denied donor offspring the same rights as adoptees. The ruling will make British Columbia the first province in Canada to ban anonymity for sperm and egg donors.
Lawyers for a B.C. woman with Lou Gehrig's disease went to court Monday to challenge Canada's assisted-suicide laws -- nearly 20 years after a similar attempt by another woman who suffered from the same incurable illness.
Thirteen vials of donated sperm should be divided among two women whose same-sex relationship has fallen apart, says a British Columbia judge who concluded sperm should be treated the same as any other type of property in a spousal dispute. The case involves two women, identified in a court judgment only by their initials, whose eight-year relationship ended in 2006.
OTTAWA, July 13, 2012 – The Honourable Rob Nicholson, P.C., Q.C., M.P. for Niagara Falls, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, made the following statement today concerning the British Columbia Supreme Court decision in Lee Carter and Hollis Johnson et al. v. Attorney General of Canada. "After careful consideration of the legal merits of the June 15, 2012 ruling from the British Columbia Supreme Court, the Government of Canada will appeal the decision to the British Columbia Court of Appeal, and will seek a stay of all aspects of the lower court decision. The Government is of the view that the Criminal Code provisions that prohibit medical professionals, or anyone else, from counselling or providing assistance in a suicide, are constitutionally valid.
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.
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.
The SCC has agreed to hear the appeal in the Carter case, a case about physician assisted dying, from the British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA). Both of the terminally ill patients involved in the Carter case, Gloria Taylor and Kay Carter, have now passed away but the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association will be arguing the case at the SCC. In June 2012, Madam Justice Lynn Smith of the B.C. Supreme Court found the current Criminal Code provision that prohibits assisted suicide to be unconstitutional. Justice Smith found that section 241(b) of the Criminal Code breaches the claimants’ rights under both sections 7 and 15 of the Charter. She further decided that those infringements are not justifiable under s. 1 of the Charter. In October 2013, the BCCA disagreed. The BCCA overturned the decision of Justice Smith on the basis that the constitutionality of section 241 with respect to section 7 and section 1 of the Charter was decided in Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney