Right to Die – mackaycartoons

Tuesday February 25, 2015

February 23, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday February 25, 2015

Liberals push for draft doctor-assisted death law

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals want the outlines of a new law governing doctor-assisted dying to be clear by mid-summer — before Canadians head to the polls in October.

They’ll try to get the ball rolling Tuesday, introducing a motion that calls for creation of a special parliamentary committee to consult experts and Canadians on the potentially explosive issue.

They want the committee up and running by March 11 and they want it to report back to the House of Commons by July 31 with a proposed legislative framework.

The Liberal motion, to be put to a vote Tuesday or Wednesday, follows a landmark ruling earlier this month by the Supreme Court of Canada, which struck down the ban on physician-assisted suicide.

The top court gave Parliament 12 months to draft new legislation that recognizes the right of clearly consenting adults who are enduring intolerable physical or mental suffering to seek medical help to end their lives.

The Harper government appears to be in no rush; Justice Minister Peter MacKay has said the government will take its time to thoroughly study the details of the court ruling and look at how other jurisdictions, including Quebec, have dealt with the issue.

The government’s response has sparked speculation that the ruling Conservatives would rather not open debate on the issue, which could expose divisions among their ranks, before the election.

However, the Liberal motion notes there’s not actually much time left to deal with the matter before the court-imposed deadline, pointing to the summer parliamentary break and the fall election.

Parliament is scheduled to sit for just 12 more weeks before taking a 13-week break starting June 24. The campaign for the federal election, slated for Oct. 19, will start in mid-September, before the planned resumption of Parliament. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Posted to Yahoo News Canada.

Friday February 6, 2015

February 6, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

February 6, 2015

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – February 6, 2015

Supreme Court strikes down assisted suicide ban

In a stunning reversal of its ruling 21 years ago, Canada’s highest court has struck down the law against assisted suicide and ordered Parliament to give desperately suffering patients greater control over how they die.
In a 9-0 ruling Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada declared the Criminal Code’s absolute ban goes too far in its attempt to protect the lives of “vulnerable people” by preventing competent, consenting adults suffering “grievous and irremediable medical conditions” from making core decisions about how they live and die.
The judges said the law is therefore an unconstitutional breach of three of the most basic rights: to life, liberty and security of the person, all enshrined in section 7 of the Charter, and cannot be justified in a free democratic society.
The court read those basic rights broadly and, agreeing with a B.C. trial judge, said the right to life is not limited to a “right not to die.”
“This would create a duty to live,” rather than a “right to life and would call into question the legality of any consent to the withdrawal or refusal of life-saving or life-sustaining treatment,” the court said.
It said that an individual’s response to a grievous and irremediable medical condition “is a matter critical to their dignity and autonomy” and the absolute ban on seeking a doctor’s help to die removes their ability “to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care and thus trenches on liberty.” It said that by leaving patients to “endure intolerable suffering, it impinges on their security of the person.”
Because the law did not set out a scheme that would minimally impair those rights, it cannot stand, the court ruled. (Source: Toronto Star)

Friday, November 16, 2011

November 16, 2011 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, November 16, 2011

MPs can’t run from right-to-die debate forever

Parliamentarians can run from the resurging right-to-die debate all they want but the past suggests that they will not be able to hide forever.

Once in every political generation, a societal issue creeps up unto MPs’ radar despite the strenuous efforts by a majority of the country’s legislators to look the other way.

Successive Parliaments spent the best part of the ’80s trying to ignore the abortion debate and the ruling Liberals supported Reform/Alliance efforts to keep the door to same-sex marriage firmly shut for most of the ’90s.

But even by the reactive standards of those episodes, it seems that calls to decriminalize assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia are falling on even more deaf parliamentary ears than usual.

In the current House of Commons, the right-to-die-with-dignity issue is essentially an orphan.

In the dying days of the last Parliament, a private member’s bill sponsored by veteran Bloc Québécois MP Francine Lalonde was defeated 228 votes to 59.

Lalonde has since retired and the vast majority of those who supported her bill are no longer in the House.

Whoever takes up this cause will essentially be starting from scratch without the active backing of his or her party.

In the past the NDP could be counted on to man the barricades of social change.

But today’s empowered New Democrats are apparently no longer as keen to take the risks associated with being on the leading edge of a rights debate. (Continued: Toronto Star)