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Justin Trudeau To Say Yes To Assisted Suicide: Canada Launches Bill To Push Physician-Assisted Suicide

By Brian McNeil | Update Date: Apr 15, 2016 04:33 AM EDT

A controversial bill tackling on the physician-assisted suicide over in Canada has resurfaced and such could turn into a law if it passes the House of Commons and the Senate.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is backing the legislation, which carries a fresh set of conditions before doctors would be allowed to aid patient’s who are struck with enduring physical or psychological suffering.

The bill surfaced Thursday and carried the following conditions:

  • Be eligible for government-funded health care.
  • Be a mentally competent adult 18 or older.
  • Have a serious and incurable disease, illness or disability.
  • Be in an "advanced state of irreversible decline," with enduring and intolerable suffering.
  • Have a "reasonably foreseeable" natural death.

Aside from the conditions above, patients who indulge in physician-assisted suicide will need to get written requests from two independent witnesses while also undergoing more than one medical evaluation and a mandatory waiting period of 15 days via NPR.

The bill was originally thumbed down last year by Canada’s Supreme Court, stating that the law denies people the right "to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care" and leaves them "to endure intolerable suffering," via a previous report from NPR.

The law was given a one-year deadline but with little progress (via the NY Times), an extension was granted when Trudeau’s group took over. The deadline was moved to June.

The whole issue is personal to Trudeau who lost his father, former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, back in 2000.

The current Canadian Prime Minister believes that his father would have preferred to pass away with dignity and seen as one of the reasons why he is pushing for the said bill via CBC Radio.

Should the bill be made into a law, Canada will join countries who allow certain forms of assisted suicide. Among the countries that allow such include Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany.

In America, only a couple of states like Oregon and Vermont allow physician-assisted suicide.

The bill is likely to invite stiff opposition from the ones who object to such a practice and people who feel that the law does not have the full right to grant people the right to take away their lives.

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