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.

OTTAWA - If legalized assisted suicide is one wing of the bird the other wing is palliative care, said MP Murray Rankin as he tabled a motion to make access to palliative care a right for all Canadians.

OTTAWA - Bioethicist Margaret Somerville warned up to 12,000 people could be euthanized annually in Canada if a new law does not ensure euthanasia is exceptional, rare and used only as a last resort.

Advocates in favour of wider access to assisted suicide have dominated parliamentary committee hearings that will help craft a new assisted-suicide law, with little opposition so far from religious voices.

OTTAWA - Physician-assisted death legislation could include competent children under the age of 18, a legal expert told a Parliamentary committee Jan. 26.

OTTAWA - Legislation that tries to restrict assisted suicide and euthanasia to the terminally ill would likely fail a court challenge, a prominent constitutional lawyer told a Parliamentary committee.

The federal government has been given four more months to come up with new laws and regulations to govern the practice of doctor-assisted suicide.

The first death by legal euthanasia in Canadian history has occurred, according to a Quebec healthcare spokesperson.

Widespread opposition to doctor-assisted suicide is beginning to reshape consultations on how Ontario should regulate the practice in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision to decriminalize voluntary euthanasia in some circumstances.

If Catholics are going to have any chance of limiting the damage of legal assisted suicide they’re going to have to get beyond outrage and suggest practical solutions, the lone Catholic representative to the Provincial- Territorial Expert Advisory Group On Physician-Assisted Dying told The Catholic Register.

TORONTO - The human rights of doctors would be “violated” by proposed guidelines that would require Ontario doctors, even against their conscience, to refer patients for assisted suicide, said the executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Society.

In 43 recommendations aimed at provincial and federal legislators, the Provincial-Territorial Expert Advisory Group on Physician-Assisted Dying has recommended the widest possible access to assisted suicide and very narrow exceptions for Catholic health professionals and Catholic hospitals, nursing homes and hospices.

Finally, a victory for common sense. Justice Michel Pinsonnault of Quebec Superior Court sounded a rare voice of reason when he ruled that Quebec’s so-called “medical aid in dying” legislation is no more than a euphemism for euthanasia. As they say, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .

Dr. Bill Sullivan — Catholic bioethicist, researcher and medical doctor — wants to counter demands for assisted suicide with conversation, care and relationships.