OTTAWA — Parliamentarians are being urged to amend a proposed new law on medically assisted dying by the children of the woman whose suffering was central to the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the ban on assisted death.
Lee and Price Carter say their late mother would not have qualified for medical help to end her life under the restrictive provisions of the bill introduced last week by the Trudeau government in response to the top court's ruling.
Instead, they say their mother and people like her would be forced to endure unbearable suffering, potentially for years.
Kay Carter suffered from spinal stenosis, a painful condition that left her bedridden, unable to move or even feed herself; she was not, however, facing imminent death.
The proposed federal law would allow assisted death only for consenting adults, at least 18 years of age, who are in "an advanced stage of irreversible decline" from a serious and incurable disease, illness or disability and for whom a natural death is "reasonably foreseeable."
The Carters say the bill is far more restrictive than the Supreme Court, which ruled in their mother's case that medical help in dying should be available to clearly consenting adults with "grievous and irremediable" medical conditions who are enduring physical or mental suffering that they find intolerable.
