Pro-euthanasia activists are preparing to sue St. Paul's hospital, operated by the Catholic medical organization Providence Health Care in Vancouver, which refuses to offer assisted suicide.
The accusers assembled a legal team to present a constitutional challenge against the healthcare institution, which does not allow euthanasia medical care for patients, but the hospital organizes transfers to other facilities that provide this type of activity to those who request it.
The activist group argues that St. Paul should provide in-house access to assisted suicide. “I hope this case opens the way to ending the ability of religion to dictate health care,” said Daphne Gilbert, vice-president of Canada's largest pro-euthanasia organization, Dying with Dignity, and a law professor at the University of Ottawa.
The challenge is a “test case,” according to Gilbert, for forcing religious medical institutions to provide abortions and assisted suicide.
“This would pave the way for the secularization of health care in Canada,” Gilbert said. “Religious institutions would have to decide to get out of the business of providing medical care – and this could be taken over by the province – or these institutions would have to align their care with the Constitution, even if it opposes their values.”
A recent episode related to the topic gained notoriety in the country: the transfer of a patient from the hospital to access euthanasia. Samantha O'Neill, 34, requested the procedure in June last year after being diagnosed with stage four cancer. As a result, she opted for an assisted death.
The St. Paul hospital prepared the patient for the procedure, but did not follow through with the methods that would ultimately kill her. O'Neill's parents said the young woman's transfer to another healthcare institution took a few hours and robbed them of their final moments with their daughter.
In response to public pressure fueled by O'Neill's transfer, the Canadian government took ownership of the Catholic-run hospital's land, according to a publication by the Archdiocese of Vancouver, and announced it would build an assisted suicide center adjacent to the site. The new building will allow patients to more easily transfer from St. Paul's care to receive euthanasia services.
Even so, activists consider it necessary for the Catholic hospital to provide care in this sense, even if it goes against religious values. According to the vice-president of Dying with Dignity, the process should begin this month.
Assisted suicide was considered illegal in Canada until 2015, when the Supreme Court ruled the national ban unconstitutional. In response, Parliament passed the Medical Assistance in Dying Act, which legalized assisted suicide in certain circumstances.
Patients could access euthanasia if death was “reasonably predictable” and the illness was “severe and irremediable.” A 2021 amendment removed the “reasonably foreseeable” requirement.
Since its legalization, euthanasia deaths have increased from 1,018 in 2016 to 13,241 in 2022, representing 4% of all deaths in Canada last year.
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