Assisted Suicide News: Canada's Supreme Court Approves Doctor-Assisted Deaths

Canada's Supreme Court has overturned a 20-year ban on doctor-assisted suicides for adults suffering from grave and "irremediable medical condition."

In a Feb. 6 ruling, the High Court said physician-assisted deaths will be allowed for a competent adult who "clearly consents to the termination of life and has a grievous and irremediable medical condition (including an illness, disease or disability) that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of his or her condition."

The court said Section 241 of Canada's Criminal Code, which prohibits anyone from assisting a person to commit suicide, and the Criminal Code's Section 14, that says that "no person is entitled to consent to have death inflicted on him," infringe on Section 7 of the Charter, which states that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice."

The lifting of the ban will take effect in one year.

"An individual's response to a grievous and irremediable medical condition is a matter critical to their dignity and autonomy," the Supreme Court said. "The prohibition denies people in this situation the right to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care and thus trenches on their liberty. And by leaving them to endure intolerable suffering, it impinges on their security of the person."

The BC Civil Liberties Association, or BCCLA, filed the case in 2011 on behalf of Lee Carter and Hollis Johnson, who accompanied the former's 89-year-old mom, Kathleen Carter, to Switzerland to have a doctor-assisted suicide to relieve her of her suffering due to spinal stenosis.

Gloria Taylor, who suffered ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, was a plaintiff in the case. She died of her illness in 2012.

According to BCCLA, in June 2012, the BC Supreme Court voided the criminal prohibition on doctor-assisted suicide, saying that it violated the rights of Taylor, Carter and Johnson.

Taylor became the first person in Canada to have the legal right to seek an order to allow her to a doctor-assisted death. The federal government appealed the decision.

In October 2013, the BC Court of Appeal said it could not reverse the Supreme Court of Canada's 1993 decision in Rodriguez v. B.C.

The BCCLA appealed it to the Supreme Court of Canada last October.

"We're thrilled with the decision. It gives seriously and incurably ill Canadians the right to seek physician assistance to end their lives in a humane way," said Grace Pastine, BCCLA Litigation Director.

Carter hailed the decision. "We are overjoyed by the Supreme Court of Canada's decision. My mother raised five children who all respected her choice. She lived with independence and resolve and refused to suffer needlessly at the end of her life," she said.

BCCLA said the maximum penalty for assisting suicide is 14 years imprisonment.

In the decision, the Supreme Court of Canada said, "The sanctity of life is one of our most fundamental societal values. Section 7 (of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) is rooted in a profound respect for the value of human life. But s. 7 also encompasses life, liberty and security of the person during the passage to death. It is for this reason that the sanctity of life 'is no longer seen to require that all human life be preserved at all costs.' And it is for this reason that the law has come to recognize that, in certain circumstances, an individual's choice about the end of her life is entitled to respect."