Running head: CARTER V CANADA: SUPREME COURT OF CANADA

Carter v Canada: Supreme Court of Canada

Students Name

Course Name

November 22, 2021

 CARTER V CANADA: SUPREME COURT OF CANADA 2

Carter v Canada: Supreme Court of Canada

Introduction

Physician-assisted suicide is described as the voluntary taking of one’s own life with

the assistance of a physician by administering a fatal drug. There are supporters and

opponents of physician-assisted suicide. Some doctors are among the opponents, believing it

violates a fundamental principle of medicine by contradicting the doctor’s function as a

healer. A variety of causes have fueled the desire for more significant influence over life and

death decisions, including avoiding suffering and pain and a better understanding of how

medical technology can extend life and impact the dying process (Chan & Somerville, 2016) .

These circumstances have fueled public interest in euthanasia and assisted suicide, both

illegal in Canada under the Criminal Code. In a 2015 national poll, 77 percent of Canadians

favored physician-assisted suicide for critically sick patients. In Carter v. Canada, the

Supreme Court of Canada found that the Criminal Code sections dealing with assisting or

abetting people to commit suicide in specific cases of “physician-assisted death” violate the

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In July 2015, the federal government introduced

an External Panel on Options for a Legislative Reaction to Carter v. Canada in response to

that ruling. This study will look at whether Canadians who are enduring unacceptable at the

end of their lives should also have the option of dying respectfully and respectfully.

Supreme Court of Canada Decision

The Supreme Court of Canada (the court) concluded in Carter that the criminal

statutes prohibiting help in dying infringed on a person’s right to life, liberty, and security in

a way that was not justifiable under section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and

Freedoms. The sections of the Criminal Code at question were paragraph 241(b), which

forbids helping suicide, and section 14, which states that no one may agree to their death.
 CARTER V CANADA: SUPREME COURT OF CANADA 3

Based on changes in Charter jurisprudence and socioeconomic reality since Rodriguez, the

Supreme Court effectively reversed its previous decision, Rodriguez v British Columbia

(Attorney General), which affirmed the prohibition as constitutionally sound (Milne &

Sullivan, 2014). The Supreme Court’s Carter judgment reveals conceptual differences with

its Rodriguez judgment in terms of the nature and scope of section 7-protected interests and

the basic justice concepts that go with them. Not only do these factors to consider have little

to do with the changes cited by the Court in Carter as justification for revising Rodriguez, but

the court’s articulation of section 7 interests, especially the right to life, and fundamental

justice principles, especially the concept of overbreadth, is troublesome on its own.

Additionally, the court’s handling of evidence of abuse in permissive jurisdictions has been

criticized.

When Justice Smith heard the case, she overturned section 241 (b) of the Criminal

Code for three reasons. To begin with, the provision impacted the plaintiff’s rights to life,

freedom, and security of the person, as stated in section 7:

“Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of the person and the right not to be

deprived thereof except following the principles of fundamental justice.”

Second, the section violated the plaintiff’s right to be treated with equal protection under the

law, as stated in Section 15 of the Charter (Doody, 2020).

“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” (JUSTICE, 2021).

Finally, Justice Smith determined that the plaintiff’s rights were not limited by section

1 of the charter, which states, “The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the

freedoms and rights set out in it subject only to such sensible boundaries of the law as can be
 CARTER V CANADA: SUPREME COURT OF CANADA 4

demonstrably justified in a free and open society.” Based on these findings, she granted

Gloria Taylor a constitutional exemption to permit her physician-assisted suicide (BCCLA,

2019). The court decided that section 241 of the Criminal Code was trying to force people to

choose between a life of suffering or a life of agony by denying them the choice of dying

prematurely by suicide. In her final order, she spelled out exactly what constitutes acceptable

physician-assisted suicide:

 The adult who requests assisted suicide should be well-informed and capable.

 They can’t be seriously depressed, either.

 They must choose physician-assisted dying on their own.

 They must have a terminal disease or be in a condition of deterioration with little hope

of recovery.

It was determined that enabling physician-assisted suicide goes against doctors’ core

values and beliefs, even though it is impossible to comprehend the anguish one goes through

when facing a life-threatening illness. No one, even a doctor, should be allowed to kill or help

in the murder of an innocent person. By allowing for harming the weak and vulnerable,

physician-assisted suicide corrupts the practice of medicine and the doctor-patient

relationship since persons who require society’s help are instead given a hastened death

(Mathews, Hausner, & Avery, 2021). When all else fails – when appropriate medical

therapies, pain management, comfort care, and hospice care aren’t adequate to alleviate

excessive suffering – patients should be able to chart their end-of-life journey painlessly and

compassionately. People with terminal cancer, Huntington’s disease, and multiple sclerosis

should have the option of choosing a humane death. They deserve the peace of mind and

enhanced quality of life that comes with knowing that if their suffering becomes unbearable,

they will have the option of a peaceful and respectful physician-assisted death. Some people
 CARTER V CANADA: SUPREME COURT OF CANADA 5

feel that when it comes to making very personal decisions about end-of-life care, people

should have the right to make the end-of-life decisions that are right for them, with the help

of their relatives and doctors.

For years, Canada’s laws made assisting in dying illegal, compelling terminally ill

Canadians to use violent methods to end their lives. No matter what the law says, people find

methods to end lives that have grown unpleasant, even if it means choosing a violent,

hazardous death. Rather than criminalizing doctors, regulation of choice in dying provides

excellent protection for very ill Canadians (Goldberg, Nissim, Ekaterina, & Hales, 2021).

Medical aid in dying saves patients gives dying people freedom and sympathy at a terrible

time, enhances end-of-life care, and costs state essentially nothing to implement, except for

the small costs connected with data collection and annual statistics reporting. In the following

case, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the right to medical assistance in dying (MAID) in

Carter v. Canada and the British Columbia courts. Canada is one of an increasing number of

countries that allow medical assistance in dying. The present MAID statute has ensured that

the system has operated as intended by putting severe constraints on who can request MAID

(Joolaee & Norman, 2021). It provides multiple layers of protection to ensure that the person

is capable and free of coercion. While MAID is an option if its agony and suffering grow

unbearable bring some people with grave and irreversible illnesses solace and peace of mind,

MAID is not generally asked or used. Even after availability is expanded to include people

near death, these protections will provide strong safety.

Bill C-14, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code and Make Related Amendments to

Other Acts, was introduced by the Government of Canada in April 2016. (medical assistance

in dying). The bill established guidelines for getting MAID and what actions medical

practitioners and nurse practitioners had to take to ensure that the person was eligible. This
 CARTER V CANADA: SUPREME COURT OF CANADA 6

included ensuring that the patient’s case was reviewed by two independent medical or nurse

practitioners who agreed that the patient met the MAID criteria (which included having a

“grievous and irreversible medical condition” and being in a state where “natural death has

become reasonably predictable”). They were also expected to guarantee that no one coerced

the patient towards having MAID. Bill C-14 was signed into law in June of 2016 (Gallagher

& Passmore, 2021). The law was quickly criticized as being overly restrictive. The provision

of the law that required a person’s death to be “reasonably predictable” to obtain MAID was

struck down by the Superior Court of Quebec in September 2019. Prime Minister Justin

Trudeau has since stated that he will introduce legislation to broaden the law. Not everyone

agrees with MAID, and health professionals who believe it violates their moral or religious

convictions have attempted to be exempted from it (Pesut, Thorne, & Wright, 2021). Some

medical professional governing bodies have policies stating that if a patient requests MAID, a

medical practitioner who objections to it due to conscience or religion must make an

“effective referral.”

Physicians will be responsible for ensuring that the patient fits these criteria and

obtaining a second opinion from an independent expert to confirm it. According to the bill,

they must also ensure that the request is made freely, advise patients about different

treatments or therapies, and confirm their choice at “reasonably spaced periods.” Thanks to

MP Steven Fletcher’s two private member legislation, Parliament might act fast if the

Supreme Court rules assisted death. The first would amend the Criminal Code to allow

physicians to assist patients in dying, while the second would create a Canadian Commission

on Physician-Assisted Death. Physician-assisted deaths, in which doctors prescribe a deadly

amount of medicine that patients experience themselves, and euthanasia, in which doctors

end a patient’s life, are becoming permitted in a growing number of jurisdictions around the

world (Roehr, 2021). The federal government has now passed a restrictive law that infringes
 CARTER V CANADA: SUPREME COURT OF CANADA 7

on the rights of Canadians who are suffering. Only terminally sick and near-death Canadians

are eligible for medical assistance in dying under the legislation. This is in direct

contradiction to Carter’s decision. According to the Supreme Court, medical assistance in

dying should be provided to fully willing, competent persons with “grievous and irreversible”

medical illnesses that inflict enduring, excruciating suffering. Many Canadians will be

trapped in excruciating pain due to the new government law (Chkaroubo, Kekewich, Miller,

& Dees, 2019). Medical assistance in dying will not be available to Canadians with

conditions such as spinal muscular atrophy, multiple sclerosis, spinal stenosis, locked-in

syndrome, severe spinal injury, Parkinson’s disease, or Huntington’s illness under the new

rule.

Conclusion

People are allowed to live much longer and delay death because of advancements in

medical therapy. However, for those suffering from progressive or terminal conditions, the

ability to survive longer frequently means a lower quality of life. No man or woman should

ever be prevented from voting. The terminally sick enjoy the same rights as healthy people,

including the right not to suffer. Those who are terminally sick should be granted the right to

assisted suicide freely. This right could enable them to depart from this world with dignity,

saving their families from economic disaster and relieving them of excruciating pain. Death

with integrity laws, also known as physician-assisted dying or aid-in-dying laws, is founded

on the notion that people with terminal illnesses should make their own end-of-life choices

and judgments how so much pain and suffering they should endure, rather than the

government and its intervention, politicians and their ideology, or religious figures and their

belief system. Giving competent, terminally ill persons this important right gives them the

freedom to put an end to a life well-lived. The court found that the prohibition on physician-
 CARTER V CANADA: SUPREME COURT OF CANADA 8

assisted dying leads seriously and incurably ill people to suffer unnecessarily at the end of

their lives, robbing them of their right to a more respectful and peaceful death. The culture of

medicine is changing as a result of physician-aided suicide. It taints the medical profession by

allowing the means of healing to be utilized as killing techniques. It finds that cities and

policymakers must reject pressure from pressure organizations and the media to legalize

physician-assisted suicide, based on the case of Carter v. Canada. Physicians must constantly

take care of their patients and never kill them. Bill C-7 and comparable legislation would

constitute a significant shift in the psychiatric culture. Psychiatrists would have to choose

which suicides should be avoided and which should be encouraged. Although the absence of

a universal consensus that therapies for psychiatric diseases are ever ineffective, the reasons

for euthanasia and assisted suicide (e.g., autonomy, self-determination, excruciating

suffering, and irreversibility) are now being used to psychiatric problems.

 CARTER V CANADA: SUPREME COURT OF CANADA 9

Reference

BCCLA. (2019). BCCLA. Retrieved from Medical Assistance in Dying.

Chan, B., & Somerville, M. (2016). Converting the 'right to life' to the 'right to physician-

assisted suicide and euthanasia': an analysis of carter v canada (attorney general),

supreme court of canada. National Center for Biotechnology Information, 24(2), 143-

75.

Chkaroubo, A., Kekewich, M., Miller, P. Q., & Dees, M. (2019). Provision of medical

assistance in dying: a scoping review. British Medical Journal, 10(7).

Doody, J. (2020). Bsb Criminal Law. Retrieved from The Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

Section 7: https://www.bsbcriminallaw.com/blog/2020/06/the-charter-of-rights-and-

freedoms-section-7/

Gallagher, R., & Passmore, M. J. (2021). Deromanticizing medical assistance in dying.

Canadian Medical Association Journal, 193(26).

Goldberg, R., Nissim, R., Ekaterina, & Hales, S. (2021). Impact of medical assistance in

dying (MAiD) on family caregivers. BMJ Support Palliat Care, 11(1), 107-114.

Joolaee, S., & Norman, J. S. (2021). How does Medical Assistance in Dying affect end-of-

life care planning discussions? Experiences of Canadian multidisciplinary palliative

care providers. Palliative Care and Social Practice.

JUSTICE. (2021). Justice . Retrieved from Section 15 – Equality rights:

https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/check/art15.html
CARTER V CANADA: SUPREME COURT OF CANADA 10

Mathews, J. J., Hausner, D., & Avery, J. (2021). Impact of Medical Assistance in Dying on

palliative care: A qualitative study. National Center for Biotechnology Information,

35(2), 447-454.

Milne, V., & Sullivan, T. (2014). Healthy Debate. Retrieved from Medical assistance in

dying: should it be legal or banned in Canada?

Pesut, B., Thorne, S., & Wright, D. K. (2021). Navigating medical assistance in dying from

Bill C-14 to Bill C-7: a qualitative study. BMC Health Services Research.

Roehr, B. (2021). Assisted dying around the world. British Medical Association, 374.