Nearly 2,000 people with incurable
diseases were helped to die by Canadian doctors in the first year since the
country legalised medically-assisted suicide.
From the time Ottawa passed the
legislation in June 2016 to June 30, 2017, 1,982 people ended their lives in
this way, according to Health Canada in a report published on Friday.
A dead man in a morgue:
Canadian doctors assist terminally
ill to die
Most had cancer, the agency said.
Extrapolating from the data
collected for the first half of 2017, the number of assisted deaths is expected
to rise but remain at less than two percent of all deaths nationwide this year
— “consistent with international experience,” it said a statement.
Doctor-assisted suicide in Canada is
reserved for adults with serious health problems who want to end their
suffering, and consists of a lethal injection in hospital or at home.
Days after the law was changed to
allow for the practice, it was challenged in court in an attempt to expand it
to include Canadians who suffer from a wasting disease but who are not facing
imminent death.
These include people suffering from
spinal muscular atrophy, multiple sclerosis, spinal stenosis, locked in
syndrome, traumatic spinal injury, Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s
disease.
Canadian bishops have instructed
their clergy to deny religious funerals for deceased persons who chose a
doctor-assisted suicide.
NAN
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