B.C court to hear Assisted Suicide case Nov. 14

[olp1fan]

so the right to live people held a poll and claims 80 % of canadians are against assisted suicide...which I find rather laughable because other polls show it Assisted suicide support at 65 % just a few years a go

What do you all think will happen?

Will the courts legalize Assisted Suicide? Will it head to the Supreme Court of Canada in a few years? What will Harper do?

The last time was in the early 90s and then it was very close (defeated by a vote) ...now the majority of Canadians are for Assisted Suicide

I'm very, very interested in following this

More to come on this by Monday when the court opens

Edited November 13, 2011 by olp1fan

[MiddleClassCentrist]

I am personally for it. People should be able to leave this world on their terms.

If I was 75 and losing my mind and couldn't remember anyone or couldn't remember where I am, what life is that?

If I would be forced to live in a wheel chair my entire life and eat through a straw, I wouldn't want that.

If I was battling terminal cancer past the point of being assisted... etc.

Edited November 13, 2011 by MiddleClassCentrist

[Tilter]

I'm 77, hale & hearty, of sound mind and am definitely in favor of the wheat board-- or was that the CBC?? Oh yeah--- assisted suicide. Not for myself mind, you but there are a few policians I'd like to assist in this endeavour. The McPremier likely thinks he's too young to think about it but remember,--- " a good start is half done" and he definitely is 1/2 done, at least half baked, as are the idiots that put him back into the Premier's seat.

Just kidding, but if he asks----?????

BUT, if I am ill with a malignant disease with no hope of recovery assist me, please.

A few of my friends have suffered from cancer and (mostly those afflicted with other maladies ,blinded, loss of hearing or mobility) have asked for help in ending it.

Others, like my brother, clung to life for a while & then just seemed to starve himself till the combination of cancer & no nutrition let him die.

As he said--- " why did the doctors treat me with no hope of recovery, to last a little longer, in pain & immobile, & a burden to my family?"

Edited November 13, 2011 by Tilter

[olp1fan]

Seeking assisted suicide is sad...but it is a choice everyone should be allowed to make if their situation is that bad

It is really inhumane that we don't get the choice

People say that it is a slippery slope that will lead to people being euthanized against their wishes

is their any proof that happens anywhere?

like real proof and not just opinion?

Edited November 13, 2011 by olp1fan

[olp1fan]

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20111113/bc_euthanasia_law_assisted_suicide_111113/20111113/?hub=BritishColumbiaHome

It's been nearly 20 years since Canada's laws on assisted suicide have been challenged by a terminally ill person, and now a similar right-to-die case has thrust the issue back into the spotlight.

On Monday, lawyers for Gloria Taylor, 63, will be in B.C. Supreme Court to argue against laws that make it a criminal offence to help seriously ill people end their lives.

In August, the Farewell Foundation lost its court battle to have the laws changed because its plaintiffs were anonymous, but in a separate case, Judge Lynn Smith agreed to fast track a trial for Taylor, who wants a doctor-assisted suicide.

She suffers from ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, an incurable illness that gradually weakens and degenerates muscles to the point of paralysis.

Taylor is one of five plaintiffs in the case, which also includes family physician Dr. William Shoichet, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and Lee Carter and her husband Hollis Johnson. The couple took Carter's mother to Switzerland two years ago so she could die with the help of a doctor.

"Lee and Hollis feel they could be criminally prosecuted for assisting her mother and that's why they are challenging the laws," said B.C. Civil Liberties lawyer Grace Pastine, adding Kay Carter suffered from spinal stenosis, which involves a narrowing of the spine.

"She was essentially going to end up lying in a hospital bed, flat like an ironing board."

While advocates for doctor-assisted suicide say it's time for Canada to amend the laws, opponents argue the issue raises serious concerns about abuse by people who stand to gain from the death of someone who may not be in a position to provide consent to assisted suicide.

The right-to-die, or euthanasia, debate last arose in 1993 when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 5-4 against Victoria resident Sue Rodriguez's battle to change the law. She also had ALS and died illegally the following year with the help of an anonymous doctor.

Sheila Tucker, one of the lawyers involved in Taylor's case, said the Kelowna, B.C., woman is relatively mobile and uses a scooter to get around but recently fell and hurt her ribs, and that could worsen her condition.

Tucker said that since the Rodriguez case, other jurisdictions, including Oregon, Washington and Belgium, have adopted laws to protect people from being influenced or pushed into planning their own deaths.

"An absolute prohibition is no longer constitutionally feasible now that there's evidence of workable systems," Tucker said.

She said studies in Oregon have suggested that people who want to die with the help of a doctor aren't likely to be victimized.

"The studies indicate that the very kind of personality type that is most likely to seek physician-assisted dying is, in fact, the independent, strong-willed personality. And I think that Gloria just happens to be an excellent example of that," she said.

"If we were not able to get some sort of timely resolution that benefited Gloria personally then I think it's very important for her to nonetheless know that that case is going to the Supreme Court of Canada and that potentially she's changed the law for others."

But Dr. Will Johnston, the B.C. spokesman for the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of Canada, said the Taylor case is troubling because it proposes that doctors would not be required to administer the lethal dose or even witness the death.

A new right-to-die law may give people another tool to abuse the elderly, especially when money is involved, he said.

"We simply don't know how to get a handle on the abuse right now, and what's being proposed simply opens up an entirely new avenue for potential victimization and abuse," said Johnston, a family doctor.

"We're in the middle of the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history. So there is simply an excessive motivation, it seems, for often family members to do things that aren't really in the best interest of the elderly."

Along with delivering babies and providing palliative care for dying patients, Johnston is also hired by lawyers to do competency or capability assessments on elderly or ill people.

He said he can think of at least 10 elder abuse cases involving people whose family members were trying to get their wills changed or bilk them of their savings by suggesting their elderly relatives weren't capable of making such decisions.

"There's nothing in the Carter-Taylor case which would prevent people who would benefit from the death of the person from proposing the suicide to them, arranging it or facilitating it, being there at the time of death. There's no requirement for third-party witnesses."

He said that since about 1996, it's been legal in Oregon for pharmacies to dispense lethal drugs for doctor-assisted suicides but there's no requirement of a witness or supervision when the drugs are administered and no statistics to gauge how the law is working.

"One thing that does emerge, which is interesting, is that people who are dying are affluent. And this is consistent with the situation of elder abuse."

In Canada, it's illegal to counsel, aid or abet a person to commit suicide and the offence carries a maximum punishment of 14 years in prison

[eyeball]

What do you all think will happen?

Will the courts legalize Assisted Suicide? Will it head to the Supreme Court of Canada in a few years? What will Harper do?

I expect it will definitely go to the SC and Harper will try to stop it. Like the case of Insite it'll be another clash of socially conservative religion and ideology against evidence and medical and ethical expertise.

If I was battling terminal cancer past the point of being assisted... etc.

This or close to it is where the line will likely be drawn. Assisted suicide will mean a doctor setting up a patient with the ability to push a button that injects the drugs that end their life themselves. As soon as the patient is unable to do so and the doctor needs to push that button it crosses a line and becomes euthanasia.

I just sat beside my brother's death bed a month ago as cancer very painfully took his life. My brother was connected to a small device which enabled both him or us to administer pain medication as needed. The pump allows the patient to administer themselves a shot but it only does so every 15 or 30 minutes or whatever time interval the staff has programmed into it. It records the number of these actual hits as well as all the attempted hits. This data gives the staff an idea of just how much pain the person is in and where the heads of the patients family or friends are at. At one point a nurse came in and saw we'd hit the button on his pain medication pump something like 36 times in one hour. None of us had been through this before and I guess we really didn't fully understand the nature of the device. We thought it was administering drugs every time we pushed the button. It probably indicated that we were a bunch of euthanizers at heart.

The point I'm trying to get at is that at some point a patient eventually does lose the ability to decide. My brother was so heavily medicated during the last 36 - 48 hours that he was effectively comatose with only a very few very brief moments of lucidity. At this point and in hindsight these moments were more precious to us than him as the final process of his dying brought our family closer together than we'd ever been.

If I thought my own death could so profoundly bring people together the way my brother's did the pain might be worth it. How do you weigh the short term distress of people watching a loved one suffer against the long term joy they may realize by becoming a tighter more closely knit family or group of friends as a result? It's a tough subject and while I thought I had my head around this issue before my brother's death I'm now forced to reassess how I'd feel if it was me.

I can't help but think about the fellow in the room next to my brother who also died. The only person who visited him once all week was his mother. He yelled and swore at her and told her not to tell anyone to visit. If I thought I was going to be this miserable I'd probably want to check out at the earliest opportunity. I suspect the nurses would have been more than happy to euthanize him.

That was a really hard week.

[Topaz]

First of all, everyone should have a living will and everyone should talk to the family of YOUR wishes. There would be no problem with assisted suicide once the rules were laid down. Something like, 2-3 doctors have to agree there's is no hope for the patient, a lawyer involved, acting on behalf of the patient along with the person the patient appointed to carry out the wishes of the patient. Something along this line will ensure safety for the patient and the family.

[olp1fan]

First of all, everyone should have a living will and everyone should talk to the family of YOUR wishes. There would be no problem with assisted suicide once the rules were laid down. Something like, 2-3 doctors have to agree there's is no hope for the patient, a lawyer involved, acting on behalf of the patient along with the person the patient appointed to carry out the wishes of the patient. Something along this line will ensure safety for the patient and the family.

That sounds like a good strategy

[dre]

I think we should all have crystals implanted in the palms of our hands, and once they turn red we just explode.

[eyeball]

That sounds like a good strategy

Now we just have to get it past the Christians, hence the need for the Supreme Court I guess.

[cybercoma]

Section 7 of the Charter has been used many times in the past to uphold people's rights to do as they wish with their bodies, particularly when a law blocks a person from making a choice about what medical care they receive. If there are doctors willing to assist someone to end their life on their own terms, then the state preventing a person from doing as they wish with their body is in effect forcing them to continue suffering. The state cannot make rules that will cause people to suffer by blocking a person's ability to choose for themselves what they want to do with their own bodies. I think the court will support assisted suicide and if they don't, I think the SCC will end up supporting it.

[olp1fan]

Now we just have to get it past the Christians, hence the need for the Supreme Court I guess.

That sounds like a horribly awful thing to go through (with your brother)

[olp1fan]

Section 7 of the Charter has been used many times in the past to uphold people's rights to do as they wish with their bodies, particularly when a law blocks a person from making a choice about what medical care they receive. If there are doctors willing to assist someone to end their life on their own terms, then the state preventing a person from doing as they wish with their body is in effect forcing them to continue suffering. The state cannot make rules that will cause people to suffer by blocking a person's ability to choose for themselves what they want to do with their own bodies. I think the court will support assisted suicide and if they don't, I think the SCC will end up supporting it.

yeah...however if the SCC strikes down anything then Harper can override the SCC

I forget what its called but I learned of it during the Insite thing..I was worried they might use it there but since no laws

were struck down they had to adhere to the SCC

EDIT: its called the Notwithstanding clause

Edited November 14, 2011 by olp1fan

[cybercoma]

They can use the notwithstanding clause, but then the doctors would have to be brought to court and the government will potentially have the same problem they had with Morgentaler: juries that refuse to convict.