Friday, August 12, 2016

Feds Say Carter Findings No Longer Necessarily True

Among the facts that the government suggests are no longer true are the top court's findings that:
  • A permissive approach to assisted dying would not put Canada on a "slippery slope" in which disabled and other vulnerable Canadians are pressured to end their lives.
To read the full CBC News article, click here.

Monday, August 8, 2016

Justice minister hires academic who thinks Supreme Court erred on assisted dying

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justice-minister-hire-assisted-dying-adviser-1.3711684

Gregoire Webber,  photo Queens Law
Gregoire Webber has argued the court's rulings were effectively legislating

By Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould has hired a new legal affairs adviser who once argued that the Supreme Court over-stepped its bounds when it struck down the ban on medically assisted dying. . . .

Gregoire Webber is touted as a brilliant and highly respected legal scholar by fellow academics but his appointment has nevertheless raised some eyebrows given his past criticism of last year's landmark decision.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Care Home Fined For Declining Euthanasia Request

Belgium Flag
http://www.christian.org.uk/news/care-home-fined-for-declining-euthanasia-request

Judges in Belgium have fined a Roman Catholic care home for refusing to euthanise a 74-year-old woman.

The rest home in Diest was ordered to pay €6,000 after it prevented doctors from giving Mariette Buntjens, a lung cancer sufferer, a lethal injection.

She died “in peaceful surroundings” at her home a few days later. . . .

Labour MP Robert Flello described the judgment as “worrying” and said there is a “risk that care homes will now close across Belgium”.

A panel of three judges ruled unanimously that “the nursing home had no right to refuse euthanasia on the basis of conscientious objection”.

They interpreted Belgium’s euthanasia law, enacted in 2002, to mean that only individual medical professionals can refuse requests, not hospitals or care homes.

To read more, click here.

Monday, July 4, 2016

Expect More From Government

http://www.pentictonwesternnews.com/opinion/letters/385087351.html

Canada’s Parliament has now passed the euthanasia law known as Bill C-14.

From the first day Bill C-14 was introduced in the House of Commons, members from all parties began the work of attempting to make this sow’s ear into a silk purse.

Even in the final days of deliberation, when the bill bounced back and forth between the House and the Senate, a majority of members still held on to the hope that they could get the job done for Canadians and turn this ‘bad’ bill into ‘good’ law.

One last ditch attempt to clean up the mess introduced in Bill C-14 by the Liberal government was the proposal of a protective amendment that would prohibit a beneficiary from participating in a person’s assisted death, or, signing the person’s request for assisted death.

This was a proposal that protected people from a greedy beneficiary or an unscrupulous family member.

But wait, why try to make this bad bill better? Turns out, this protective amendment didn’t ‘fit the bill’ so it was passed without it — by a majority of Parliament. And, why should Parliament at this point, even try to make the legislation better?  Especially when the sweet smell of summer is calling back home and the steaks are sizzling away on the barbeque.

Friday, July 1, 2016

Was the New Mexico Supreme Court Thinking About Canada?

New Mexico Supreme Court
By Margaret Dore, Esq., MBA
Updated July 4, 2016

Yesterday, the New Mexico Supreme Court in a unanimous 5-0 decision held that there is no right to "physician aid in dying," meaning physician-assisted suicide. Notably, the Court stated that to do so would lead to "voluntary or involuntary euthanasia." The decision states:
[W]e agree with the legitimate concern that recognizing a right to physician aid in dying will lead to voluntary or involuntary euthanasia because if it is a right, it must be made available to everyone, even when a duly appointed surrogate makes the decision, and even when the patient is unable to self-administer the life-ending medication. [page 31]
The New Mexico Supreme Court thus describes the situation unfolding in Canada today: first with the Canadian Supreme Court decision in Carter (implicitly finding a right to physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia), and now with news that the BCCLA has launched a court challenge, seeking to expand that "right."

In a recent blog post, Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, described the BCCLA challenge this way:
This is the first of many [likely] court challenges to Canada's euthanasia and assisted suicide law. The euthanasia lobby [wants] to extend euthanasia to "mature" minors, to people with dementia (through advanced directives) and for people with psychiatric conditions alone. . . .
Canada is proving the New Mexico Supreme Court right.