SW News:

Mental health advocates and pro-life groups have voiced concerns over a potential expansion of Canada's assisted suicide laws, which would let citizens to seek lethal medical treatment even if they don't have a life-threatening illness. 
Adults with terminal conditions were given permission to use assisted suicide for the first time in Canada in June 2016. The government said in 2021 that it would spend two years researching how Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) can be safely provided on the basis of mental illness. The administration postponed this action until the beginning of 2023. In other words, by the middle of March 2024, Canadians who are suffering from a mental disease will be able to ask for assisted suicide. 
In Canada, there has been much debate over the planned regulation change. Opponents claim that the new guidelines will let people to request and receive assisted suicide even if they are not close to death from a severe condition. 
Media reports originating from a case from St. Paul’s Hospital, in British Columbia regarding a patient who was sedated and transferred to another facility to have her life terminated through Canada’s MAID policy highlights the precarious situation. 
St. Paul’s Hospital, as with other entities within Providence Health Care, upholds Catholic understanding of the sanctity of life from conception until death. A natural death must not be speeded or inflicted. In this case, the patient never regained consciousness. 
The Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) has long pushed for the Court and lawmakers to use clear language to state that healthcare workers' rights of conscience come first. The Supreme Court refrained from saying anything of the sort, preferring to leave room for a potential reconciliation of conflicting rights claims. 
It has never been satisfactorily established that doctors have the right to conscientiously oppose killing a patient. The CCRL objected to the practice of effective referral in Ontario, which has been implemented by its College to require doctors to be complicit in an act that they find morally reprehensible. 
The statement released by CCRL highlights the enormous and ongoing contributions made by Catholic hospitals to Canada. In reality, the largest palliative care unit in Vancouver is available at St. Paul's Hospital. Hopefully, as St. Paul undergoes substantial renovations, there will be additional beds available for palliative care. 
The CCRL calls on the provincial government and the people of British Columbia to recognize Providence Health Care's and St. Paul's significant contributions to the province's and its citizens' overall well-being through palliative medicine, which offers much-needed dignity in dying. 
The Campaign Life Coalition of Canada has also launched numerous campaigns to stop the growth of MAID, including advocating for laws like Bill C-314, which states a mental disorder is not a serious and irremediable medical condition due to which a person could receive medical assistance in dying.