Assisted suicide debate reopened in Canada

Violation of the Canadian Constitution or human right?

By Brittney MacDonald, Staff Writer

In one of the first times since the 1993 Sue Rodriguez case, the debate on assisted suicide has been brought to Canadian media’s attention. The current legal status of assisted suicide, or the “right-to-die” as supporters are calling it, has once again come into question for the Supreme Court.

In an October 14 press conference held in Sept-Iles, Quebec, Prime Minister Stephen Harper assured the public that the Canadian government had no intention of revisiting the right-to-die debate: “These difficult questions around right-to-die and assisted suicide—as you know they were discussed a couple of years back in the Parliament of Canada [referring to the examination of the law in 1993], the government of Canada at this time has no intention of reopening that debate.”

Many right-to-die supporters do not approve of Harper’s response. Different organizations representing a scope of people from the disabled to the terminally ill or injured and their families have come forward and petitioned the Supreme Court to reopen the debate on the grounds that not doing so violates the Canadian Constitution.

The nature of their argument centres on the fact that physically healthy individuals have the right to take their own life without legal penalty; however, it’s a crime if someone helps another who requires assistance in ending their life due to a physical impediment, disability, or coma. For the right-to-die supporters, this is discrimination.

Grace Pastine, litigation director for the BC Civil Liberties Association—a group seeking to legalize assisted suicide—told the Canadian Press, “The fact of the matter is that Canadians are suffering against their wishes at the end of life and they are asking the court for change.

“Now is the time for Canada to decriminalize physician-assisted dying and give seriously ill patients the dignity and compassion that they deserve.”

However, the government and supporters of upholding the current laws fear that decriminalization of assisted suicide will lead to exploitation. Changing the assisted suicide laws has the possibility of making it far easier for someone to negatively influence an emotionally vulnerable person to commit suicide, while not suffering consequence in their role in that person’s death.

Taylor Hyatt, a 22-year-old woman with cerebral palsy who is also a member of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, is afraid that legalization of assisted suicide will create the wrong mentality for society regarding the disabled, that the people are “better off dead than disabled,” as Hyatt told CBC.

As of October 15, Supreme Court hearings are underway to determine whether the current assisted suicide laws are in violation of the Constitution. If so, the case will force Canadian Parliament to re-examine the laws, but not necessarily change them or the current legal status of assisted suicide.

Assisted suicide is legal in various forms in Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, as well as several US states, most notably Oregon.