OTTAWA - McGill University ethicist Margaret Somerville has called for a Royal Commission on “physician-assisted death” as well as for the federal government to invoke the notwithstanding clause to trump the Supreme Court's recent ruling on the matter.

In the 33-year life of the Charter of Rights and Freedom the federal government has never invoked the notwithstanding clause to override a court ruling. But Canada has never faced a decision quite like the Feb. 6 edict by the Supreme Court that will usher in assisted suicide and euthanasia.

OTTAWA - With one year to come up with a solution after the Supreme Court struck down Canada’s laws against physician-assisted suicide, there are any number of options being bandied about on all spectrums of the political divide.

And so it begins. The Supreme Court of Canada decision to legalize assisted suicide (and by extension euthanasia) is chilling but no surprise. Poll after poll has shown Canadian public sympathy moving steadily in favour of some form of state-sanctioned killing.  

OTTAWA - Disappointment, indignation and calls to invoke the notwithstanding clause followed a historic Supreme Court of Canada unanimous decision that struck down a ban on physician-assisted suicide and opened the door to assisted death for people who may not have a terminal illness.

Despite calls for quick and decisive action from opponents of the Supreme Court ruling that legalized physician-assisted suicide, Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the government has no intention of acting hastily.

TORONTO - The coming months will be critical for Canada’s pro-life movement as the country faces the potential legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Doctors may be men and women of action, but before a patient dies they should be open and available for lots of talk, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is advising its members.

OTTAWA - Two senators introduced a euthanasia and assisted suicide bill was introduced in the Senate Dec. 2 which may ensure debate on this controversial matter reaches the House of Commons before next year’s federal election.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has warned doctors and ethicists on several hot-button social issues, attacking abortion, embryonic stem cell research and euthanasia as “playing with life” and “a sin against God.”

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis denounced a "false compassion" that would justify abortion, euthanasia, artificial reproduction technologies and medical research violating human dignity. And he urged medical doctors to "go against the current" and assert "conscientious objection" to such practices, which he called sins "against God the creator."

TORONTO - Watching the world slide down a slippery slope to euthanasia and assisted suicide, or “medical aid in dying,” is disheartening to a Second World War veteran who confronted state-sanctioned killing while helping to liberate Europe. 

Updated 11/6/14

TORONTO - Canada's health care industry is already on a slippery slope to accepting euthanasia and it may soon turn into a full-blown avalanche, warns Alex Schadenberg. 

HAMILTON, ONT. - A palliative care nurse offered moving accounts of how a person’s last days of life can be some of his or her most fulfilling, enlightening and spiritually rewarding when she spoke at Hamilton Right to Life’s Annual Respect Life Fundraiser Dinner Nov. 3.