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A Small Victory Against Assisted Suicide In Canada

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As we have pointed out before, the assisted suicide debate is active all over the globe, and Canada is currently deep in the throes of this debate.  Assisted suicide has strong advocates up there, as they do here in America.

That is no match for the unrelenting reality that assisted suicide is a dangerous policy.

According to a report from the Toronto Star, the Canadian federal government has asked the Canadian Supreme Court to let a Criminal Code ban against assisted suicide stand for another six months, “while it scrambles to craft a response to last winter’s ruling that said the law is unconstitutional.”

Despite the new Canadian federal government’s apparent support for assisted suicide, they have not come up with enough of an argument to try and get a federal law legalizing the use of assisted suicide off the ground.

From the report: “The justice department said it isn’t clear whether the high court intended to decriminalize ‘all consensual killings and assisted suicides (not just physician-assisted ones).’ Nor, says the brief, was it clear ‘in what precise circumstances a physician would be able to benefit’ from the legal exception to the criminal ban, or what steps a doctor must take ‘to determine the genuineness of the person’s wish to die,’ or how to respect the reluctance of some medical professionals to participate in assisted suicide of their patients.”

The department went on to cite the advice of “experts in foreign jurisdictions with comparable legislation to take the necessary time to consider a new law” and the requests of provincial governments in Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, P.E.I., Manitoba and Ontario that Ottawa ask the court for more time to work with provinces to design an appropriate legal framework.

What’s undeniable in this episode is that despite the well-crafted campaign of assisted suicide proponents, this debate is far from settled.

That’s all the more reason that we need to continue our work here in Maryland for the sensible decision to reject this dangerous proposal.

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