Lawyers Push National Body to Pull Support on Expanding Assisted Dying Eligibility

A group of Canadian lawyers wants their national advocacy organization to withdraw its support for a planned update to the rules governing medical assistance in dying. The change, scheduled for March, would expand eligibility to include people whose only underlying medical condition is a mental disorder. The Canadian Bar Association, which represents thousands of lawyers from across Canada, had argued that excluding such patients could violate their rights, but its members are set to debate a resolution next week that would reverse that position. The resolution asks the association to not only withdraw its earlier statements, but also to urge federal, provincial, and territorial governments to wait for reliable ways “to determine whether psychiatric conditions are irremediable.”...