Canada Debates on Assisted-Dying Law for Terminally-ill Patients
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government introduced last month a bill seeking to legalize the status of physician-assisted suicide for terminally-ill Canadian patients diagnosed with 'serious and incurable disease' which brought upon them tremendous amount of 'enduring physical or psychological suffering'. Mentally-ill patients are excluded.
The bill, however, restricts doctor-assisted suicides to citizens and residents who are covered in the country's public healthcare system to deter any potential sudden increase in medical tourism from dying people elsewhere who would resort to mercy-killing as per Huffington Post.
Currently, the controversial bill is being hotly debated in the House of Commons but with Liberal Party-controlled parliament, Trudeau hopes to see his country joining a slew of countries that allow varying forms of legally assisted suicide like Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. Euthanasia is permitted in a few American states like Oregon and Vermont.
House Leader Dominic LeBlanc says Liberal-dominated committee studying the so-called government's Bill C-14 are scrutinizing the contents of the bill line by line as the group makes minor amendments to the proposed legislation.
"We have said all along that the committees should undertake their work and their study independently. We respect that the committee will do its process. We're not directing that committee process," MP LeBlanc said as quoted by The Globe and Mail.
The Liberal-dominated justice and human rights committee has rejected a number of significant amendments to the bill as put forward by opposition parties such the NDP's proposal to cover mentally-ill patients and Conservative-recommended judicial review or psychological assessments into the proposed law. As soon as the committee finishes its job, it will send back the bill to the Commons to be debated and voted upon before heading to the Senate in time before the Supreme Court's June 6 deadline.
Meanwhile, Vancouver lawyer Joe Arvay who won a landmark Carter case at Canada's Supreme Court criticized the Liberal-sponsored government's bill to restrict euthanasia to people with 'incurable disease' as 'clearly unconstitutional.' He went on to argue that the parliamentary response to top court's decision should be based on procedural standpoint rather than substantive reasoning.
"The Carter decision is the final word on the minimum rights that Canadian citizens are entitled to and those minimum rights are not limited to illnesses that are terminal," Arvay said as quoted by The Star.
