(Canadian) Supreme Court allows doctor-assisted suicide in specific cases

[GliderGuider]

Source: CBC

The Supreme Court of Canada says a law that makes it illegal for anyone to help a person commit suicide should be amended to allow doctors to help in specific situations.

The ruling only applies to competent adults with enduring, intolerable suffering who clearly consent to ending their lives.

The court has given federal and provincial governments 12 months to craft legislation to respond to the ruling; the ban on doctor-assisted suicide stands until then. If the government doesn't write a new law, the court's exemption for physicians will stand.

The case was brought by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association on behalf of two women, Kay Carter and Gloria Taylor, both of whom have died since the legal battle began. Both women had degenerative diseases and wanted the right to have a doctor help them die.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/supreme-court-allows-doctor-assisted-suicide-in-specific-cases-1.2947487

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An excellent ruling!

[KamaAina]

1. I do not believe I just read this

A lawyer on behalf of Carter and Taylor argued that they were being discriminated against because their physical disabilities didn't allow them to kill themselves the way able-bodied people could.

[jeff47]

4. Can't shoot yourself in the head if you can't hold a gun. (nt)

[nichomachus]

16. No one should have to blow their brains out

That's the whole point of this. There are more humane ways of doing it -- and it is being done in a lot of enlightened places.

[KamaAina]

2. As I read this, there is not even a requirement that the person have a terminal illness

as there is in Oregon and a handful of other U.S. States.

This is a giant step backward for people with disabilities. Remember, a fair number of Jack Kevorkian's patients were women with MS.

[GliderGuider]

3. The court isn't making a new law, it's striking down the existing ban.

The Canadian government now has a year to craft a new law that respects the basic rights, with the appropriate safeguards.

[jeff47]

5. And if they want to die, they should be forced to continue to live?

"Ok, you're gonna spend 30+ years unable to get out of bed or move much. And you have to do that because this particular disease isn't fatal".

There needs to be some pretty strong safeguards to make sure assisted suicide is only being used by people who really want it, and really have no possibility of improvement. Such as ensuring that they aren't "just" suffering from depression.

But if their acceptable quality of life is gone forever, we shouldn't force them to endure.

[GliderGuider]

6. My first wife became a quadriplegic from MS, and died of septicemia from bed sores.

She emphatically didn't want to leave until she had wrung every last drop of juice out of her life. She attempted suicide once while she was still able to, but changed her mind in time. However, at the end it would have been very comforting and calming for her to know that she had an option.

Whether or not there is a "right to life", there is certainly no "obligation to live".

[KamaAina]

7. Define "acceptable quality of life".

I have several friends who are quadriplegics and vastly prefer life as a quad to the alternative.

[GliderGuider]

8. Isn't that up to the person whose life it is?

Why should I be able to define an acceptable quality of life for you or anyone else?

[KamaAina]

10. Ideally

but all too often, assumptions are made that life with a significant disability is of unacceptable quality. People with such disabilities get told to their faces, "I'd rather be dead than be like you", all the time. Now imagine being told that by someone in a white lab coat holding a syringe.

[GliderGuider]

11. Isn't the point of having a legal system to ensure that a person's wishes are respected?

Or do you feel that doctors would skirt the legal niceties willy-nilly and commit murder? As you may guess, I don't buy the slippery slope argument for a millisecond.

How about the vision where I desperately wish to end my suffering, but some stranger wearing a white coat and a self-satisfied smirk tells me, "Sorry, bub, you gotta suffer to the end, and I'm here to make sure you do..."

What kind of humanity is that?

[KamaAina]

12. But how do we know it's really their wishes?

Sort of like cops obtaining false confessions under duress.

[GliderGuider]

13. By putting safeguards in place

Like repeated interviews by unconnected examining bodies, with no "patient advocates" present.

[nichomachus]

17. That's not hard to do

People are usually quite clear about this things. You are spending a lot of time here creating horror-story straw men. That's really a hysterical approach that short-circuits an important discussion that we should be having about end of life decisions.

[Omaha Steve]

20. Most DUers know by now I'm terminal

I'm going out on MY terms when the time comes in a few years.

OS

[KamaAina]

21. I guess I am not most DUers

Who will cover labor issues for us?

[Bigmack]

14. I TOTALLY agree with you, Glider Guider, here

I don't know if I would have the courage to end my own life, if it became intolerable, but I certainly should have the RIGHT to do so. My life is MINE! CLEARLY NO ONE SHOULD EVER BE FORCED-ENCOURAGED TO END THEIR LIFE FOR ANY REASON. However if that is what they WANT, under intolerable circumstances, they deserve that right. Ms Bigmack

[nichomachus]

15. That's not how it works. Your argument if a gross misrepresentation of the process.

A huge straw man.

[OnlinePoker]

9. Their life, their choice.

Stephen Hawking has survived through ALS because he is still able to use his mind to perform amazing science. Someone else may not feel the same when their body has revolted against them and want to end it. Normally, by the time this happens, they are unable to do the deed themselves. Nobody is forcing doctors to assist, but nobody should have the right to tell someone they can't end their life if they want it ended.

[jeff47]

19. Then they keep on living.

Acceptable is up to each person. Some people don't want to spend years in bed. Others want to, as mentioned above, "wrung every last drop of juice out of their life".

So you have safeguards like multiple psychiatric interviews, without others 'helping', to ensure the person really does want to die. If they don't want to die or are being coerced, then they don't.

This isn't going to be something where a doctor arbitrarily decides to kill them. That is still murder. There's going to be a lengthy process with safeguards to ensure it's what the person really wants.

[nichomachus]

18. For a lot of people having the choice is important -- even if they don't opt for ending their life

Knowing that if it gets too bad, you have a way out many times lets a person go on to the end. I've dealt with dying people and discussed end-of-life issues with them, and this is what I observed. When they could have chosen to withdraw means of life support or medication, they instead chose to go on. When we talked about their decision, they said it was knowing that they could end it when they wanted to that gave them the strength to go on.

I don't know if anyone knows the story of Barney Clark's Key. Barney Clark was the first person put on an artificial heart. It was a cumbersome affair. Doctors gave him a key with which he could shut off the machine if he decided it was too much of a burden and his life wasn't worth living any more.