Canada: Law on euthanasia

Control your life up to the end.

Euthanasia is now authorized in Canada. The Supreme Court decided on February 6, 2015, to allow the medical staff to “help” patients suffering from “incurable illnesses” put an end to their days. In the first decision taken in 1993, the Supreme Court had refused to pass a law allowing medical help to die, with a vote of five judges to four, for fear of “possible abuse in cases of vulnerable persons.” 22 years later, the decision was passed with a unanimous vote from the nine judges.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Canada (CBCC) reacted with a statement published on its website the same day. It declared that “helping a person to commit suicide is neither an act of justice or mercy, nor a palliative treatment”, but rather a murder. The bishops invite Canadians to do everything in their power to “provide comfort and support to all dying persons and to those dear to them, so that none of them, because of their solitude or vulnerability or loss of independence or for fear of suffering or feeling pain, may feel that they have no choice but to have recourse to suicide.”

The families of two persons suffering from degenerative incurable diseases and who are now deceased had brought their cases before the Canadian Supreme Court. Before dying the two women had launched a legal challenge, claiming that people “should have the right to decide the end of their lives.”

Euthanasia, a form of murder falsely labeled “assisted suicide”, is already authorized in Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and several American states such as Montana, Oregon and Vermont.

(sources: apic/afp/bfmtv/canoe – DICI no. 311 dated February 27, 2015)

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