TORONTO - Catholic bishops, anti-euthanasia activists and doctors all know they’re not going to get what they want out of a court-mandated law regulating doctor-assisted suicide likely to be introduced into Parliament this month, but they’re still trying to limit the damage.

If there is an issue that unites most politicians, health workers, social agencies and religious leaders, it is the urgent need for a bold strategy and major investment in palliative and hospice care.

To read the comments in various newspapers and on web sites, the Church has no place in national policy debates, including the current deliberation on assisted suicide. Of course that’s nonsense at any time of year but it seems particularly absurd at Easter.

Writing and speaking out against euthanasia is a blessing. There is something bracing about standing up for the truth.

OTTAWA - Campaign Life Coalition has paved the way for every organization fighting for the unborn to take part in this year’s National March for Life May 12.

TORONTO - The parliamentary committee report on how to legalize assisted suicide may want “all publicly funded health care institutions (to) provide medical assistance in dying,” but Ontario Catholic hospitals, nursing homes and health centres aren’t having it.

Six years ago, 89-year-old Kay Carter, a terminally ill Vancouver woman, circumvented Canadian law by purchasing a doctor-assisted suicide in Switzerland. Her death prompted a 2011 lawsuit that sought access to assisted suicide for other Canadians who were suffering and near death.

TORONTO - A statement from Cardinal Thomas Collins to be read in the Archdiocese of Toronto’s 225 parishes urges Catholics to oppose a “chilling” parliamentary committee report on assisted suicide that Collins said “should shock us to the core.”

Catholic lawyers may soon find themselves turning down business from clients who would rather die than live with Alzheimer’s, Lou Gehrig’s disease or other disabilities.

OTTAWA - Should the federal government accept the recommendations of its special committee on assisted death, it will threaten the existence of Canada’s faith-based health care institutions, says the Coalition for HealthCARE.

OTTAWA - The special Parliamentary committee on physician-assisted dying recommended Feb. 25 euthanasia for the mentally ill and opened the way for euthanasia of consenting minors.

OTTAWA - In the face of political and public criticism, a Liberal directive that would have forced its MPs to vote the party line on an upcoming assisted-dying bill has been put on hold.

OTTAWA -  The conscience rights of doctors and health care workers should not be allowed to interfere with a patient’s “right” to a medically assisted death, claimed a university professor from the faculties of law and medicine at Dalhousie University.

With doctor-assisted suicide now legal in Quebec and available across Canada to anyone granted permission from a Superior Court judge, bishops and pastors will face new pastoral dilemmas.

OTTAWA - It would be inappropriate for a person intent on assisted suicide to request the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, said Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast.