The Supreme Court of Canada Ruling in Carter v. Canada: A New Era of End-of-Life Care for Canadians

摘要

In a unanimous ruling released on February 6, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) found in Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) [1] that the federal Criminal Code [2] prohibitions on physician-assisted dying (PAD) to have infringed on Canadians’ Charter rights to life, liberty, and security. With this historic judgment, Canada has become the second country in the world, after Colombia, to have allowed for PAD on constitutional grounds.[1] Carter v. Canada had its origin with the death of a British Columbia woman, Kay Carter, at the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland. Slightly over a year later, Carter’s daughter and son-in-law launched constitutional litigation along with the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, a family medicine physician, and Gloria Taylor, a woman suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. In 2012, the trial judge found for the claimants and ruled as unconstitutional the impugned prohibitions, a decision that was later overturned by the B.C. Court of Appeal. The SCC granted the claimants leave to appeal and heard oral arguments on October 15, 2014.