End of Life Decision Making
March 6, 2015
The Supreme Court of Canada in the recent decision of Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 5, has decided that the current Criminal Code provision that prohibits anyone from assisting another person in committing suicide is unconstitutional. This decision took the rare step of overturning a previous decision of the Court (Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General), [1993] 3 SCR 519) which had upheld the prohibition against assisted suicide. In the Carter decision, the Court determined that a prohibition against physician-assisted suicide violates section 7 of the Charter (the right to life, liberty and security of the person). This right is violated when someone suffers intolerably as a result of a medical condition without the ability to instruct a medical professional to end their life. The Court stated that the prohibition against physician-assisted suicide is void insofar as it deprives a competent adult of assistance where that person is able to clearly consent to the termination of their life, and that person is suffering from a “grievous and irremediable medical condition (including an illness, disease or disability) that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of his or her condition.” The Court has suspended the effect of its decision for one year which will allow the government, if it chooses, to enact new legislation in relation to physician-assisted suicide. How this area of the law will unfold is difficult to predict. There remain many unknowns in relation to how this decision will be interpreted by the public, by physicians, and by the government. The circumstances which will justify a physician-assisted suicide will need more clarification and there will likely be more decisions from courts across Canada on this topic in the near future.
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