A Right to Voluntary Euthanasia? Confusion in Canada in Carter

Abstract

In Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), Justice Lynn Smith held that the Canadian Criminal Code’s prohibitions on murder and assisting suicide infringe Sections 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to the extent that those prohibitions outlaw voluntary, active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. This article suggests the judgment is defective in at least four key respects: misunderstanding the principle of the inviolability of human life; concluding that laws against assisting suicide discriminate against those physically incapable of committing suicide; evading the logical “slippery slope” argument; and (as the Irish High Court has since concluded in Fleming v. Ireland) misinterpreting the evidence from jurisdictions with relaxed laws.Although the judgment of Justice Smith has been reversed by the British Columbia Court of Appeal, the reversal turned on questions of constitutional law, not on these four criticisms. These criticisms remain important, not least as the case is to be heard by the Supreme Court of Canada.