The Canadian Supreme Court ruled on Friday that adults of sound mind who are suffering intolerably, physically or psychologically, have the right to die by physician-assisted suicide.
In its unanimous ruling on Carter v. Canada, the court found that Canada’s ban on assisted suicide “infringes the right to life, liberty and security of the person in a manner that is not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” Doctors have the ability to address whether a patient is mentally competent and capable of consent, and whether their condition is intolerable or can be abated, the decision stated.
The ruling is suspended for 12 months to give the federal government, provincial legislatures, and medical agencies time to draft new laws. Doctors who are unwilling to take part in the procedure will not be forced to comply.
“An individual’s response to a grievous and irremediable medical condition is a matter critical to their dignity and autonomy,” the court stated in its decision. “The prohibition denies people in this situation the right to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care and thus trenches on their liberty. And by leaving them to endure intolerable suffering, it impinges on their security of the person.”
Affidavits from the case told the experiences of people who found themselves quickly succumbing to painful degenerative diseases like Huntington’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
One witness, Gloria Taylor, who was wheelchair-bound and in constant pain within a year of being diagnosed with ALS, wrote a letter to the British Columbia Supreme Court in 2010 challenging the then-constitutional ban on physician-assisted suicide.
Click Here: camiseta seleccion argentina
“My present quality of life is impaired by the fact that I am unable to say for certain that I will have the right to ask for physician-assisted dying when that ‘enough is enough’ moment arrives,” Taylor wrote. “What I fear is a death that negates, as opposed to concludes, my life.”
She concluded: “I do not want to die slowly, piece by piece. I do not want to waste away unconscious in a hospital bed. I do not want to die wracked with pain.”
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT