Passage of the bill would fill the legal void created after a February 2015 Supreme Court ruling, which overturned a criminal ban on assisted suicide ordering the government to frame a new law in this regard within a year, the New York Times writes.
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“And it says that while death would have to be foreseen, there would not have to be a specific prognosis or timeline associated with when that might occur”. The committee had urged the government to minimize the obstacles in front of Canadians who want a doctor’s help to end their suffering.
Under the proposed new law, to be eligible for a medically assisted death, a person must be someone who is “suffering intolerably” and for whom a natural death is “reasonably foreseeable”.
Canada has introduced its new assisted suicide law.
Kay Carter would not have qualified for an assisted death under the law proposed Thursday by the Trudeau government in response to the top court’s landmark ruling, said the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, a plaintiff in the case.
Announcing the new legislation on Thursday, Jody Wilson-Raybould, the Canadian minister of justice, said the measure would ensure a peaceful death.
While assisted suicide is legal in the USA states of Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, it is not legal across the rest of the country.
Health Minister Jane Philpott called it an “historic day for our country”.
But the advocacy group Dying With Dignity Canada has serious concerns about the proposed legislation, since it does not allow patients diagnosed with dementia, Alzheimer’s and other conditions that diminish mental competency to give advanced consent to their assisted death. “This law will have an impact on patients, their families and their health care providers”. It said that restricting access to those whose death is “reasonably foreseeable” would leave a whole swath of the population out.
Be eligible for government-funded health care (a requirement limiting assisted suicides to Canadians and permanent residents, to prevent suicide tourism). Other parties have said from the outset that they won’t whip their members but Government House leader Dominic LeBlanc initially said Liberals would be required to support the legislation. Each case would have to be assessed by two independent doctors; if the doctors objected to participating in euthanasia, they would nonetheless be obliged to refer their patients to another doctor who did not. The court also ruled the ban denying someone with a serious or terminal condition the option of ending life early was a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Nonetheless, the high court extended the deadline to June.
“While the legislation permits assisted dying for adults suffering from physical illnesses, and does not include some of the worst ideas recommended by opponents of assisted dying like requiring prior judicial approval – it leaves out entire categories of suffering Canadians who should have a right to choose a safe and dignified assisted death”.
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The controversial issue most recently made headlines in Canada’s neighbour to the south when terminal American cancer patient Brittany Maynard campaigned for the legalisation of assisted suicide in her final months.
