Canada


Euthanasia prevention akin to torture, Canadian court hears

Xavier Symons | 22 March 2013 |
tags: assisted suicide, Canada, euthanasia
In the most controversial Canadian bioethics case in years, a British Columbia court has heard that outlawing euthanasia is akin to torture.

Canadian doctors divided over euthanasia

Xavier Symons | 13 February 2013 |
tags: assisted suicide, Canada, euthanasia
In many Western nations most people support the legalization of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, according to opinion polls. But doctors - who must be involved - may feel differently.

Canadian assisted suicide activist dies of natural causes

Michael Cook | 11 October 2012 |
tags: assisted suicide, Canada
The woman at the centre of Canada’s move towards assisted suicide died of natural causes last week before taking advantage of an exemption from the law granted by a judge in British Columbia.

Canada honours prominent eugenicist

Michael Cook | 05 October 2012 |
tags: Canada, eugenics
One of Canada's most honoured women was a prominent eugenicist.

Leading Canadian fertility doctor in disgrace

Michael Cook | 22 September 2012 |
tags: Canada, IVF, professional misconduct
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is to hold a hearing about various allegations against a leading fertility and pro-choice doctor.

Canada’s A-G to appeal assisted suicide decision

Michael Cook | 14 July 2012 |
tags: assisted suicide, Canada
Canada's Attorney General, Rob Nicholson, announced this week that he will appeal to the country's Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the British Columbia Supreme Court that bans on assisted suicide were unconstitutional.

Medical journal calls for debate on “therapeutic homicide”

Jared Yee | 30 June 2012 |
tags: assisted suicide, Canada, euthanasia
The Canadian Medical Association Journal says that euthanasia is "therapeutic homicide" which requires extremely robust arguments to justify it.

Full-contact bioethics

Michael Cook | 22 June 2012 |
tags: Canada, euthanasia, publishing standards
What sinks a job application also sinks a bioethics article. That is the conclusion to be drawn from a scathing review of an article in the journal Current Oncology. It triumphantly claimed to find a score of unsupported and false statements in a harsh critique of legalised euthanasia published last year.

Canada edges closer to legalising assisted suicide

Michael Cook | 16 June 2012 |
tags: Canada, physician assisted suicide
The issue of euthanasia in Canada is no longer simmering on a back burner. After the Supreme Court of British Columbia found that Criminal Code provisions which prohibit doctors from helping their patients commit suicide are unconstitutional, it is on a full rolling boil.

Canadian journal calls for curbs on aborting girls

Michael Cook | 18 January 2012 |
tags: abortion, Canada, gendercide
After a long legal and political debate leading up to a decision by its Supreme Court in 1988, Canada has ended up as one of the few nations in the world without an abortion law. About 100,000 abortion are performed each year. But now the Canadian Medical Association Journal is calling for strict limits on abortion – if the mother wants to abortion a child simply because it is a girl.

Canadian expert report endorses euthanasia

Michael Cook | 19 November 2011 |
tags: assisted suicide, Canada, euthanasia
A lengthy report on euthanasia commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) has strongly recommended the legalisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia. The six-person panel argues that this is consistent with Canadian values, and will not lead to an increase in elder abuse or a slippery slope from voluntary to non-voluntary euthanasia.

British Columbia’s supreme court to hear assisted suicide challenge

Michael Cook | 19 November 2011 |
tags: assisted suicide, Canada
The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association has launched a constitutional challenge to a ban on assisted suicide. It is representing several plaintiffs, including Gloria Taylor, a 63-year-old woman with the degenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Sperm donors father colossal families in Canada, US

Jared Yee | 15 October 2011 |
tags: Canada, sperm donation, US
Experts are concerned about lax regulations on sperm donation in Canada and the US where some men have anonymously fathered dozens of children.

Question marks on surrogacy in Canada

Jared Yee | 23 September 2011 |
tags: Canada, surrogacy
A handful of widely-publicised surrogacy cases in Canada has sparked worry about the commercialisation of baby-making.

20-year-old surrogate mother abandoned

Jared Yee | 16 September 2011 |
tags: Canada, human drama, surrogacy
When Cathleen Hachey, 20, offered to be a surrogate for a British couple, she could never have foreseen that they would abandon her by text message 27 weeks in to the pregnancy.

Detecting hidden consciousness in vegetative state patients

Jared Yee | 09 September 2011 |
tags: Canada, PVS, US, vegetative state
Some patients previously thought to be unconscious are in fact aware of themselves and their surroundings, according to Dr Adrian Owen of the University of Western Ontario.

Ontario introduces “hospital secrecy clause”

Jared Yee | 17 June 2011 |
tags: Canada, hospital care
The Ontario government plans to exempt hospitals from responding to freedom-of-information requests related to quality of care.

Donor anonymity disappears in British Columbia

Michael Cook | 21 May 2011 |
tags: Canada, Olivia Pratten, sperm donation
IVF sperm and egg donors can no longer be anonymous in the Canadian province of British Colombia, a judge has ruled. It was a victory for Olivia Pratten, a 29-year-old journalist.

Canadian doctors debate transplants for foreigners

Michael Cook | 30 April 2011 |
tags: Canada, organ donation

“Baby Joseph” returns to Canada, breathing on his own

Jared Yee | 28 April 2011 |
tags: Canada, futile care
Joseph Maraachli, the boy whose family refused to accept a Canadian hospital’s recommendation to remove his breathing tube and allow him to die, is now breathing on his own without the assistance of a mechanical ventilator.
 
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