Note: This article appeared about one month before the Supreme Court of Canada ordered the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia.
In October, the Supreme Court of Canada heard the Carter case, where parties are challenging Criminal Code prohibitions on physician assisted suicide in the hopes of decriminalizing it. If they’re successful, it will impact more than just physicians.
In the Carter case, I acted for two groups of Protestant and Catholic physicians and a group of Catholic healthcare institutions. We argued that life is sacred and that assisted suicide should not be decriminalized, but we went on to argue more. The physicians argued that killing was not medicine and the Catholic healthcare institutions argued that providing dignity in death to the terminally ill and suffering was accomplished through palliative care and spiritual care, not through prematurely ending patient lives.
Beyond that, and most importantly, both groups pleaded with the Court to protect freedom of religion and freedom of conscience should it decide to decriminalize assisted suicide. In short, the physicians asked that should the Court legalize assisted suicide, that it rule that physicians who object to the practice on moral or religious grounds cannot be compelled to engage in the practice. Similarly, the Catholic healthcare institutions asked that they not be required to offer assisted suicide in their facilities on the grounds that doing so would violate Catholic teaching. . . [Full text]