VANCOUVER — Two more B.C. residents have applied for court orders allowing them to have a physician-assisted death, and several others are in the works.
A lawyer for the two applicants made a brief appearance Friday before B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson and obtained a publication ban on any information that might identify one of his clients, who is a woman, and an order sealing her court file.
The woman, who can be referred to only by the initials H.H., suffers from mitochondrial cytopathy, a progressive and fatal condition that affects many of the body’s systems, particularly the brain and nervous system.
Outside court, lawyer Garth Edwards declined to comment on his client’s motivation for seeking the court exemption for assisted death, saying he didn’t have permission to discuss specifics of the case prior to a hearing on Monday to deal with the court petition for H.H.
But he confirmed that H.H. was the second person in B.C. to seek court permission for a physician-assisted death, after Hinkson recently granted an exemption for a woman only identified as A.A., who is suffering from an advanced stage of multiple sclerosis.
“I have one more — and there’s three others, to my knowledge,” Edwards said.
Edwards said his other client suffers from ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a degenerative and fatal neurological disease. He said the other three expected applicants, whose cases are also to be dealt with in Vancouver, are being represented by other lawyers.
The federal government recently tabled proposed new regulations on physician-assisted death. Last year, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the law banning assisted death as unconstitutional.
The ruling allows people to seek court exemptions permitting physician-assisted death until a new law is passed.
