FROM THE REGISTRAR’S DESK
After the Supreme
Court decision
Rocco Gerace, MD
Registrar
photo: D.W. Dorken
We appreciate that
this new landscape
may look daunting
to you
E
ight days before he died,
Dr. Donald Low, a highly
respected microbiologist,
made an impassioned
videotaped plea for the legalization
of physician-assisted death.
Terminally ill with a malignant
brain tumour, Dr. Low looked at
the camera and talked about the
frustration of “not being able to
have control of my own life; not
being able to make the decision for
myself when enough is enough.”
He said he was afraid of paralysis,
eventually not being able to swallow food, or have control over his
bodily functions. “What the end
is going to look like, that’s what is
bothering me the most … A lot of
clinicians have opposition to dying
with dignity. I wish they could
live in my body for 24 hours and
I think they would change that
opinion,” he said.
Dr. Low – who was recognized in
2012 with a CPSO Council Award
for helping guide Toronto through
the SARS crisis – died in 2013.
He never lived to see the Supreme
Court deliver its decision in Carter
v. Canada, that gave competent
Canadian adults who are suffering intolerably from grievous and
irremediable medical conditions,
the right to end their life with a
doctor’s help.
It is a momentous decision;
one that changes the practice of
medicine. But it will have a bigger impact on our patients. Simply
having this option available to them
– whether or not they ever choose
to pursue it – provides for a sense
of control that I believe is actually
life-affirming. It was this kind of
autonomy that Donald Low had so
desperately wanted.
So where do we go from here?
Well, the Supreme Court has now
given the federal government until
June 6th to have a legislative framework in place. In the meantime,
those wishing to exercise their right
to die with the help of a doctor can
apply to a superior court in their
home province for “relief in accordance with the criteria” set out in
the high court’s ruling.
Anticipating such an occurrence,
and unwilling to leave physicians
Issue 1, 2016 Dialogue
7