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Dear Friends,

On September 11, 2019, Quebec Superior Court judge Christine Baudouin ruled that the prohibition of “medical assistance in dying” of people who are not at the “end of life” (in the Quebec law) or whose death is not “reasonably foreseeable” ( Canadian law) is unconstitutional. Elated by its victory, the death lobby is now pressing the Prime Minister to weaken the law even further by removing the requirement that a person be capable of consenting to the euthanasia ...

Where some choices (imitating George Orwell) are “more equal” than others.

Recent Developments

[For further information about the original court decision and subsequent legislation that legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada in 2016, under the euphemism Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), see Leiva R, Cottle MM, Ferrier C, Harding SR, Lau T, McQuiston T, Scott JF. Euthanasia in Canada: a cautionary tale. WMJ [Internet]. 2018 Sep [cited 2019 Oct 20];64(3):17-23. Available from https://www.wma.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WMJ_3_2018-1.pdf]

A) Hastening Death: Government actions, court rulings, health authority ...

Dear friends, 

After an extensive worldwide consultation over a period of several years, the World Medical Association (WMA) reaffirmed on Saturday, October 26, at its Annual Assembly in Tbilisi, Georgia, its opposition to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. 

You may recall that at the October 2018 annual assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland, the Canadian and Dutch medical associations proposed a draft resolution that the WMA adopt a neutral stance regarding the ethics of these acts. They met with overwhelming opposition, and the motion was ...