There is awful news from Canada, where the legislature in the province of Quebec yesterday passed a law defining euthanasia as end of life care. Under the law a doctor can legally administer a lethal injection to his or her patient who has requested it. The patient does not have to have a terminal illness, only an “incurable” one which is causing “unbearable suffering” . Nothing in the law prevents a person from rendering his illness incurable by refusing treatment for it, and the definition of “unbearable suffering” is left up to the patient and the doctor.
If there is any good news it is that the federal government in Ottawa is looking into challenging the law, holding that it violates the country’s federal criminal code.
The government previously successfully challenged a ruling in favor of assisted suicide by a court in British Columbia. That case is still under appeal.
Here is a link to a story about the passage of this terrible terrible law. It is very like the laws in Belgium and the Netherlands, where doctors admit and defend the practice of euthanizing patients without their consent, to makes things easier for their families: