VANCOUVER, B.C. (CN) - The British Columbia Supreme Court on Friday struck down Canada's criminal prohibition of doctor-assisted suicide.
The ruling stems from cases filed by Gloria Taylor, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, and Lee Carter and Hollis Johnson, a couple who feared criminal prosecution for helping a relative obtain physician-assisted suicide services in Switzerland.
Madame Justice Lynn Smith found that the Criminal Code of Canada's prohibition of physician-assisted suicide was legislatively overbroad and "grossly disproportionate to the objectives it is meant to accomplish."
Smith also found that the ban had a disproportionate effect on people with disabilities.
"The provisions regarding assisted suicide have a more burdensome effect on persons with physical disabilities than on able-bodied persons, and thereby create, in effect, a distinction based on physical disability," according to the 395-page ruling. "The impact of the distinction is felt particularly acutely by persons such as Ms. Taylor, who are grievously and irremediably ill, physically disabled or soon to become so, mentally competent, and who wish to have some control over their circumstances at the end of their lives."
The last time the issue went to court, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the criminal ban in a 5-4 decision on a case filed by ALS sufferer Sue Rodriquez in 1993. Since then the public policy debate has remained alive in Parliament but no substantive changes have occurred despite a few attempts by individual lawmakers.
While the parties wrestled over the standing of certain intervenors, both sides enlisted a number of experts to support their arguments about the ethics of physician-assisted suicide. The role that ethics played in the decision was a point of contention.
Plaintiffs argued "that the ethical position can inform, but not determine, the legal analysis. They submit, however, that in this case the legal resolution should mirror the ethical one. They suggest that there is no societal consensus supporting a principle of the absolute sanctity of human life but that there is a societal consensus supporting the principle of a person's autonomy over his or her own body," the ruling states.
"Canada says that whatever one might conclude about the ethical position is irrelevant to the legal questions before the court. It criticizes the plaintiffs' argument for attempting to raise one ethical view to the status of a principle of fundamental justice. Nevertheless, Canada says that the preservation of human life is a fundamental value in Canadian society and that respect for life transcends individual, religious and diverse cultural values. Canada does not assert a state interest in the absolute protection of all human life. It says, however, that respect for this fundamental value is reflected in the state's interest in not condoning the taking of human life, and embodied in the criminal law."
The British Columbia government cited United States of America v. Burns, "where the court stated ... The broader aspects of the death penalty controversy, including the role of retribution and deterrence in society, and the view that capital punishment is inconsistent with the sanctity of human life, are embedded in the basic tenets of our legal system, but they also reflect philosophic positions informed by beliefs and social science evidence outside 'the inherent domain of the judiciary.'"