As the Supreme Court began to debate whether terminally ill Canadians should have the right to a physician-assisted death, supporters of the right to die with dignity held a rally at the Galloping Goose Switch Bridge over the Trans-Canada Highway on Wednesday.
“It is time that individual requests be honoured, that those who desire a medically assisted death have the means and way to do that with dignity and without suffering,” retired nurse Galina Coffey-Lewis said as drivers honked their car horns and cyclists rang their bells.
“I’ve been haunted by a patient for 40 years. He grabbed my hands and said, ‘I’m suffering so horribly. Please, please, please, I’m ready to go. I’m going. Please help me die.’ Of course, we did nothing.”
Retired nurse Marya Nijland, waving a placard at the passing cars, said people should be able to choose how they die, pointing to the deaths of her parents in the Netherlands. “My sister is a nurse and she gave a morphine injection to them in 1983 and 2005 and the family was all there in the Netherlands,” said Nijland. “It’s so common in Holland.”
Retired anaesthetist Don Armstrong, who has watched patients and family members suffer during their final days, also joined the late-afternoon rally. “When I’m no longer able to take care of myself, I don’t want anybody else to have to do it,” he said.
In Ottawa, those arguing for a change in the law say public opinion has shifted dramatically in the more than 20 years since North Saanich’s Sue Rodriguez became a household name by taking her fight for a medically assisted death to the top court.
In 1993, the nine-justice panel was split; Wednesday’s submissions made it clear the issue remains as divisive as ever for medical practitioners, religious groups and advocates for the rights of the disabled.
Two groups representing Canadians with disabilities appeared before the court, arguing opposite sides of the case.
The justices are considering whether the ban violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in part because while able-bodied Canadians can take their own lives, someone physically incapable of doing so would need help — and the helper would face legal repercussions.
Some disabled people adapt better than others and simply wouldn’t seek to end their own lives, given the right, acknowledged Joseph Arvay, the lead lawyer for the appellants and himself a paraplegic.
“I say — and with the greatest respect I say — it is wrong, indeed it is arrogant of those disabled people to impose their views of what suffering is acceptable and tolerable for others,” he said. “Suffering is a very personal, subjective and contextual concept.”
At one point, government lawyer Donnaree Nygard argued that even the most seriously disabled people have options for ending their lives.
“The refusal of nutrition and hydration is neither easy or comfortable, but the so-called usual means of suicide are also not easy or comfortable … What they want is not access to assistance for the usual means of suicide. What they want is — in their own words — a better choice.”
The panel also raised the issue of who ought to have the right to an assisted death. Justice Michael Moldaver wondered about diseases that may not have a cure now, but could in the future. Justice Rosalie Abella asked whether someone’s right ought to be limited by the illness itself.
“Assisted dying should only be allowed in the most serious cases and not just because somebody wants to; it’s because their condition is not going to get any better,” Arvay said.
Though the plaintiffs argue it would be up to Parliament to determine the extent of a law allowing assisted death, they provided some conditions: the person would have to be a competent adult, acting voluntarily, and with an incurable medical condition that causes profound suffering.
It’s up to the courts to compel Parliament to act, Arvay said.
But the government argued that little has changed since 1993, when the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that where assisted death is concerned, certain rights enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are trumped by the principles of fundamental justice.
“Our position is straightforward: Rodriguez is still good law,” Robert Frater, the government’s lead lawyer, told the court.
