A B.C. Judge ruled Friday to strike down the law that makes physician-assisted death illegal in Canada.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lynn Smith ruled that the current law violates the constitutional rights of the three plaintiffs who led the landmark legal challenge.
While declaring the law against euthanasia invalid, the judge suspended that declaration for one year to allow Parliament to set out what requirements are needed.
The judge found that "palliative care cannot relieve all suffering" and accepted that legal end-of-life practices allow doctors to withhold life-sustaining treatment and administer palliative sedation to the point of hastening death.
The case is expected to be appealed by the federal or B.C. governments, who opposed striking down the law.
One of the plaintiffs, Gloria Taylor, a 64-year-old Kelowna woman who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disease that slowly robs individuals of their motor skills, issued a statement after the ruling, which said:
"I'm deeply grateful to have the comfort of knowing that I have a choice at the end of my life. This is a blessing for me and other seriously and incurably ill individuals. This decision allows me to approach my death the same way I tried to live my life — with dignity, independence and grace."
In the spirit of this challenge, BLW lawyers are committed to using the law to empower injury victims to recover with dignity, independence and grace.
