Tag: Gillian Bennett

Doctor-assisted death appropriate only after all other choices exhausted, CMA president says

Canada.com

Sharon Kirkey

Doctor-hastened death would only be appropriate after all other reasonable choices have been exhausted, says the head of the country’s largest doctors’ group.

Dr. Chris Simpson, newly installed president of the Canadian Medical Association, made the comments in advance of a landmark Supreme Court of Canada hearing expected to add fuel to the emotional end-of-life debate gaining urgency across Canada.

Simpson said there are enough doctors in Canada willing to perform doctor-hastened death, if the federal ban outlawing euthanasia were lifted.

But doctors first need safeguards to protect the vulnerable and a strategy to urgently shore up palliative care “so that this is not seen as a first, or second or even third choice, but a choice that’s appropriate for people after all other reasonable options are exhausted,” he said. [Full text]

Woman makes own suicide a part of campaign to change law

Sean Murphy*

An 85 year old woman living on Bowen Island, British Columbia, killed herself with a drug overdose in the presence of her husband because she had developing dementia.  She planned to make her death a political statement in favour of the legalization of assisted suicide, writing an extensive blog article explaining her decision and sending a letter to the editor of the Vancouver Sun for posthumous publication.    Symptoms of dementia were reportedly progressing and she decided to kill herself before the condition became too advanced.  [Vancouver Sun]