Excerpts, CBCNews “More than three quarters of Canadians in a new online poll supported doctor-assisted suicide, as the issue heads the Supreme Court next week.
Eighty-four per cent of people surveyed said they agreed that “a doctor should be able to help someone end their life if the person is a competent adult who is terminally ill, suffering unbearably and repeatedly asks for assistance to die.”
Nearly 90 per cent of Nova Scotians and British Columbians in the survey agreed with the statement. More men agreed with it than women.
From those who supported the right to die, 88 per cent supported it for patients with a “terminal illness that results in unbearable suffering.” That number dropped slightly — to 86 per cent in favour — for patients with a “serious incurable illness or condition, with an advanced state of weakened capacity that is permanent, incurable, and results in unbearable suffering.”
The Supreme Court of Canada will begin hearing Carter v. Canada next week. The appeal case challenges the criminality of physician-assisted suicide.
The case was originally launched in 2011 by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, Gloria Taylor and the family of Kay Carter. Both those women suffered from degenerative conditions and have died.
In 2012, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled in their favour and gave Parliament one year to rewrite the laws against assisted dying.
However, the federal government appealed the decision and the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned the ruling in 2013.”
Solid majority backs MD-assisted suicide
With Dignity 