Dying Justice: A Case for Decriminalizing Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in Canada

Couverture
University of Toronto Press, 2004 - 201 pages
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The legal status of assisted death in Canada is in urgent need of clarification and reform. If this is to take place, however, the process must be informed by a careful, thorough, and thoughtful analysis of the issues. In Dying Justice, Jocelyn Downie provides an up-to-date and comprehensive review of significant developments in the current legal status of assisted death in Canada. She then recasts the framework for analysis in terms of the nature of the decision for assisted death. Refusals of treatment and requests for assisted suicide and euthanasia, the author believes, should be respected if they are made voluntarily by informed and mentally competent individuals.

No one has yet proposed a regime for Canada that is both less restrictive than the status quo with respect to assisted suicide and euthanasia and more restrictive with respect to the withholding and withdrawal of potentially life-sustaining treatment. On the basis of a thorough review of all of the major arguments made against permitting assisted suicide and euthanasia, Downie's regime permits some assisted suicide and euthanasia, but also sets out and insists upon a test that must be met before refusals of treatment would be respected.

 

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Page 33 - Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
Page 191 - The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
Page 52 - No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice. 3. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
Page 52 - Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
Page 182 - Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: a freedom of conscience and religion; b freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; c freedom of peaceful assembly; and d freedom of association.
Page 57 - The right of a man to the protection of his own reputation from unjustified invasion and wrongful hurt reflects no more than our basic concept of the essential dignity and worth of every human being — a concept at the root of any decent system of ordered liberty.
Page 50 - It read, in part, that every human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his own body; and a surgeon who performs an operation without his patient's consent commits an assault, for which he is liable in damages.
Page 90 - Jones also stands to gain if anything should happen to his six-year-old cousin. Like Smith, Jones sneaks in planning to drown the child in his bath. However, just as he enters the bathroom Jones sees the child slip and hit his head, and fall face down in the water. Jones is delighted; he stands by, ready to push the child's head back under if it is necessary, but it is not necessary. With only a little thrashing about, the child drowns all by himself, "accidentally," as Jones watches and does nothing.
Page 50 - The least touching of another's person wilfully, or in anger, is a battery; for the law cannot draw the line between different degrees of violence, and therefore totally prohibits the first and lowest stage of it; every man's person being sacred, and no other having a right to meddle with it in any the slightest manner.
Page 90 - In the first, Smith stands to gain a large inheritance if anything should happen to his six-year-old cousin. One evening while the child is taking his bath, Smith sneaks into the bathroom and drowns the child, and then arranges things so that it will look like an accident. In the second, Jones also stands to gain if anything should happen to his six-year-old cousin. Like Smith, Jones sneaks in planning to drown the child in his bath. However, just as he enters the bathroom Jones sees the child slip...

À propos de l'auteur (2004)

Jocelyn Downie is the director of the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University.

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