Medically Assisted Death Research Paper

Medically assisted death should be legal in Canada assuming that applicants meet the clearly stated guidelines and safeguards that have been put into play by the government. Not legalizing medically assisted death is impractical and a violation of several rights given to citizens of Canada, as stated in The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Medically assisted death should be legal for three major reasons: All Canadian citizens have the right to life and liberty, as stated in s.7 of The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In connection with this fundamental right, all citizens must have the right to end their life before they lose the ability to do so as an effect of their condition. A second violation of The Canadian Charter of
Section 12 states: “Everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.”. In the event that a Canadian citizen is suffering from a terminal illness with no outlook of survival and death in the foreseeable future, it is clear that they are suffering and in an excruciating amount of pain as they undergo a slow descent into death at the hand of their terminal illness. An example of this would be a cancer patient. After the treatment fails and cancer begins to spread uncontrollably the patient will experience several different kinds of pain that are unavoidable even with the help of strong medications. Examples of the different kinds of pain that a cancer patient has to endure as they die are as follows: Nerve pain, or neuropathic pain which can be described as burning,shooting or tingling pain caused by pressure on the nerves and spinal cord. Somatic pain or bone pain, this is caused by the cancer cells affecting the bones, this causes an aching or throbbing pain. Visceral pain or soft tissue pain caused by a body organ or muscle, often described as a sharp and throbbing pain or a cramping pain depending on what area is being affected. Phantom pain which is a pain in a part of the body that has been removed, this type of pain is often described as unbearable
Medically assisted death being illegal is in clear violation of s.7, s.15 and s.12, by not allowing citizens the right to live and a safe passage to death it violates our Right to Life and in relation to the violation of s.7 discriminating against those who have an incurable disease is a clear violation of s.15 and the Equality Rights.Also in connection with these other violation of our most basic rights not allowing medically assisted death to be legal infringes on s.12 of the charter by forcing Canadian citizens to endure insufferable types of pain such as;neuropathic pain, bone pain,visceral pain, phantom pain and referred pain with no escape except for the death that is prolonged without physician-assisted death. Finally, physician-assisted death must be legalized in order to save Canadian citizens and the Canadian government considerable amounts of money paid in taxes and divided all throughout the country's healthcare system. For all of these reasons medically assisted death should be legalized in Canada or else as a country, it cannot possibly claim to follow The Charter of Rights and