The Supreme Court has delivered a landmark ruling on doctor assisted dying.
In a unanimous decision the Court says people with grievous and irreversible medical conditions should have the right to ask a doctor to help them die, as long as they’re competent to give consent.
Lee Carter of Roberts Creek, on the Sunshine Coast, was one of the plaintiffs in the case. Her mother chose to go to Switzerland for a legal assisted death. She says people nervous about the implications have no cause for fear.
Federal and provincial governments now have a year to amend their laws. In the meantime, the ban on doctor-assisted suicide stands. Carter’s husband Hollis Johnson says that means some work still ahead, but he says Canada has models in Europe and other places it can follow.
