Supreme Court of Canada Orders Legalization of Physician Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) 2015 SCC 5
Protection of Conscience Project, 2016
46 Pages Posted: 27 Jan 2016 Last revised: 21 Dec 2023
Date Written: December 13, 2023
Abstract
This paper offers a retrospective analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada decision legalizing physician-assisted suicide and physician-administered euthanasia (EAS). The analysis is informed by later controversy about providing EAS for mental disorders and by the development of practice environments increasingly hostile to objecting practitioners. It explores the meaning of irremediablilty in the trial court and Supreme Court decisions, the contested status of EAS in relation to medical practice and health care, and claims that Canadian courts have determined that there is no ethical difference beween EAS and accepted contemporaneous end-of-life practices like withdrawing inefficacious or disproportionately burdensome treatment.
Keywords: euthanasia, assisted suicide, freedom of conscience
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