Assisted suicide law needs safeguards: Report

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A panel that is recommending the Federal government look at legalizing assisted suicide says there needs to be strong safeguards in place to prevent unwanted deaths.

The report, commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada, comes just as a BC woman is asking the BC Supreme Court to let her die with her doctor’s help.

Gloria Taylor of Kelowna has Lou Gehrig’s disease and is one of a handful of plaintiffs who want to amend Canada’s assisted suicide laws.  Opponents, like the Attorney General of Canada, argue allowing assisted deaths could lead to elder abuse.

Report panel chair Udo Schuklenk, a bioethicist and philosophy professor at Queen’s University, says their report recommends allowing only assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia.

He stresses people who want to die with assistance need to be of sound mind.

“[That] they don’t just suffer from depressions, for instance, or that it might be just a response to some catastrophic event in their lives,” says Schuklenk.  “We want this request to be made by competent people and more than once.  I think these are the two important criteria, and that it’s voluntary of course.  That goes without saying.”

Schuklenk adds the panel also recommends some distance between people wanting to die and their care providers.

“The competency assessment, in our view, should be made by somebody who is not involved in the clinical care for the patients and would not be involved in potentially providing assistance in these patients dying,” he notes.

The panel also says families need to plan better for death through education and living wills.