Category: Assisted suicide

Politicians wrestle with doctors’ consciences in Victoria

Conscientious objection needs to be protected

MercatorNet
Reproduced with permission

Paul Russell*

As the Victorian Ministerial Advisory Panel on “assisted dying” makes ready to release its interim report sometime in April, The Age newspaper turned its attention to the matter of conscience whether a doctor may refuse to take part in any action that would bring about the premature and deliberate death of a person.

Conscience – or the ability to draw upon one’s own personal belief system in making a decision about an action – plays out at different levels in any debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide. . . [Full text]

 

Fewer than half of assisted-death requests in Nova Scotia have been granted

Provincial stats on medical assistance in dying include applications filed between June 2016 and March 2017

CBC News

Frances Willick

Sixty-seven Nova Scotians have requested medical assistance to die since Canada’s assisted dying legislation was passed last June.

But of those 67 applicants, only 31 actually received medical help to die.

The Nova Scotia Health Authority, which oversees assisted dying in the province, said there are several reasons why the remaining applicants may have not received the help they requested. . . .[Full text]

 

Scarborough health practitioners stand against assisted suicide

Doctors seek protection from policy requiring them to make referral

Scarborough Mirror

Dominik Kurek

A number of local healthcare practitioners fear their right to choose whether or not they participate in providing assisted suicide to patients is being taken away from them.

Assisted suicide became legal in Canada in June 2016.

The Canadian law to allow medical assistance in dying (MAID) followed a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that struck down the law forbidding physician assisted dying, saying the old law violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The federal law, however, makes no indication that healthcare professionals would have to participate in MAID.

But, a College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario policy requires practitioners who conscientiously object to MAID to provide an effective referral to a non-objecting, available and accessible physician, nurse practitioner or agency. . . [Full text]

 

The mentally ill must be part of the assisted-dying debate

The Globe and Mail

André Picard

“I am my own saviour. Always have been, always will be.”

Those are the last words Adam Maier-Clayton, 27, posted on his Facebook page before taking his own life on Thursday. His death was not a surprise. Mr. Maier-Clayton had been saying for months that he wanted to end his life, and pleaded publicly for an assisted death.

But existing legislation, Bill C-14, requires that death be “reasonably foreseeable,” so he was deemed ineligible. He took matters into his own hands.

Mr. Maier-Clayton’s advocacy – up to and including his suicide – have forced us once again to ask the question: Should people with mental illness be denied assisted death? (A similar question needs to be asked about those with dementia.) . . . [Full text]

 

Doctors will have right to refuse assisted death requests under planned reforms

The Age

Farrah Tomazin

Doctors will have the right to refuse to help terminally ill patients who wish to die provided they don’t obstruct people from seeking support elsewhere, under assisted dying laws to be drafted by the Andrews government.

In a high-level report to be considered by cabinet, an expert panel is set to recommend allowing doctors to hold a “conscientious objection” to physician-assisted death – similar to the provisions that allow them to refuse abortions in Victoria.

But medical clinicians who are willing to help patients end their life may be required to have extra training, and anyone who tries to pressure someone to die could face criminal sanctions in a bid to ensure there are strict safeguards against exploitation. . . [Full text]