Assisted-suicide debate hits Vancouver courtroom

It's a subject that has split communities and families, and it's been years since it's been raised in court. But today, Canada's laws governing assisted suicide and the right to die are front and centre -- in a Vancouver courtroom.

Gloria Taylor, a 63-year-old who suffers from the muscle-degenerative disease known as Lou Gehrig's, will be arguing that it's her right to take her own life, or have help doing so, when her disease has progressed past the tolerable point.

For Taylor, it's been a long legal battle.

Other plaintiffs have joined the fight, but Taylor won the right to fast-track her case last August, in recognition of her ongoing medical challenge.

Critics argue that agreeing would be a bad move, and that it would open the door for abuse by family members or others who might have an interest in an ill person's death.

Given several high-profile legal cases in the recent years, the subject has also received academic consideration.

The Canadian Press has the background on today's court fight:

VANCOUVER -- It's been nearly 20 years since Canada's laws on assisted suicide have been challenged by a terminally ill person, and now a similar right-to-die case has thrust the issue back into the spotlight.

On Monday, lawyers for Gloria Taylor, 63, will be in B.C. Supreme Court to argue against laws that make it a criminal offence to help seriously ill people end their lives.

In August, the Farewell Foundation lost its court battle to have the laws changed because its plaintiffs were anonymous, but in a separate case, Judge Lynn Smith agreed to fast track a trial for Taylor, who wants a doctor-assisted suicide.

She suffers from ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, an incurable illness that gradually weakens and degenerates muscles to the point of paralysis.

Taylor is one of five plaintiffs in the case, which also includes family physician Dr. William Shoichet, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and Lee Carter and her husband Hollis Johnson. The couple took Carter's mother to Switzerland two years ago so she could die with the help of a doctor.

"Lee and Hollis feel they could be criminally prosecuted for assisting her mother and that's why they are challenging the laws,'' said B.C. Civil Liberties lawyer Grace Pastine, adding Kay Carter suffered from spinal stenosis, which involves a narrowing of the spine.

"She was essentially going to end up lying in a hospital bed, flat like an ironing board.''

While advocates for doctor-assisted suicide say it's time for Canada to amend the laws, opponents argue the issue raises serious concerns about abuse by people who stand to gain from the death of someone who may not be in a position to provide consent to assisted suicide.

The right-to-die, or euthanasia, debate last arose in 1993 when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 5-4 against Victoria resident Sue Rodriguez's battle to change the law. She also had ALS and died illegally the following year with the help of an anonymous doctor.

Sheila Tucker, one of the lawyers involved in Taylor's case, said the Kelowna, B.C., woman is relatively mobile and uses a scooter to get around but recently fell and hurt her ribs, and that could worsen her condition.

Tucker said that since the Rodriguez case, other jurisdictions, including Oregon, Washington and Belgium, have adopted laws to protect people from being influenced or pushed into planning their own deaths.

"An absolute prohibition is no longer constitutionally feasible now that there's evidence of workable systems,'' Tucker said.

She said studies in Oregon have suggested that people who want to die with the help of a doctor aren't likely to be victimized.