National Post
Canada’s doctors are seeking clarity from the federal government on what the Supreme Court of Canada intended in its landmark ruling on assisted dying, including the question of how far a doctor is permitted to go in contributing to a patient’s death.
“We’ve got a few key questions that we think need clarity and this is one of them: Is it euthanasia or is it assisted dying?” said the Canadian Medical Association’s director of ethics and professional affairs, Dr. Jeff Blackmer.
The powerful doctors’ lobby said it is not clear whether the high court has opened the door not just to assisted suicide – where a doctor writes a prescription for a lethal overdose of drugs the patient takes herself – but also to something many physicians find profoundly more uneasy: pushing the syringe themselves. . . [Full text]