Canadian Supreme Court Legalizes Physician-Assisted Suicide

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The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that it will be legal for doctors to help their patients die who suffer intolerably from an incurable condition, and gave authorities a year to create rules for implementing the measure.

The decision reversed the ruling made by the same court in 1993, when it dismissed a suit by Sue Rodriguez, a woman in a terminal state and who demanded the right to assisted suicide.

The nine judges on Canada's highest court voted unanimously to reverse the 1993 decision and all signed the new ruling as co-authors, something that legal experts say is unusual and intended to boost its institutional strength.

The judges said in their ruling that "we do not agree that the existential formulation of the right to life requires an absolute prohibition on assistance in dying, or that individuals cannot 'waive' their right to life."

"This would create a 'duty to live,' rather than a 'right to life,' and would call into question the legality of any consent to the withdrawal or refusal of lifesaving or life-sustaining treatment," the Supreme Court wrote.

The reversal of the ban on physician-assisted suicide is the result of court cases entered by two women, Kathleen Carty and Gloria Taylor, who were suffering from chronic degenerative illnesses.

Carter died in 2010 at a Swiss clinic that practices assisted suicide, while Taylor died in 2012 of an infection.

But before dying, both took their cases to court, which launched the judicial process that ended Friday. EFE

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