When Katherine Arnup’s mother had a brain aneurism in 1990, she and her siblings were faced with tough choices.

I am a second-year medical student at the University of Toronto. Next year, my peers and I will embark on a series of rigorous and demanding clinical rotations, shortly after which we will decide which area of medicine we will pursue in our professional lives. Conversations about the future abound. 

SURREY, B.C. – Assisted suicide was legalized just over a year ago, but the debate is far from over.

LIVERPOOL, England – A British court ruled Tuesday that physicians can stop providing life support, against his parents' wishes, to Alfie Evans, a 21-month old boy who has an unknown neurological degenerative condition.

This past fall, my mother received a call from the care home in Yorkton, Sask., where her eldest sister was a resident. My mother was informed that her sister had taken a turn in health and there likely wasn’t much time left. 

The Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada is asking the Ontario Court of Appeal to take a second look at their case against the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

While doctors who lost their right to practise medicine according to their conscience contemplate a legal appeal, a prominent pro-euthanasia organization suspects faith-based hospitals, nursing homes and hospices may be next to face demands to accommodate euthanasia and assisted suicide.

OTTAWA – The creation of a national palliative care strategy for Canada took a significant step forward on Dec. 12 when a private member’s bill became law.

EDMONTON – Margie Harper entered the hospital last year on the first day of Lent, her forehead still bearing a dark smudge from the Ash Wednesday Mass.

VATICAN CITY – People who are dying must be accompanied with the love of family members and the care of medical professionals, but there is no requirement that every means available must be used to prolong their lives, Pope Francis said.

Since my return to parish ministry after some years as a hospital priest, I have continued to minister to patients receiving palliative care in hospitals, long-term care facilities and in their own homes.

Dying is no fun and it never was. But adding doctor-assisted suicide into the mix only seems to have made things more complicated.

The Ontario government will fall 35 per cent short of its own goal for expanding hospice access by March 31, 2019, The Catholic Register has learned. 

OTTAWA – Euthanasia and assisted suicide deaths in Canada could soon exceed the rates of such deaths in Belgium and the Netherlands, warns the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.

In the 16 months between the Supreme Court decision and the passage of federal legislation regulating medically assisted death, I was intensely involved in discussions and debates within the medical profession, among Catholic health care providers, ethicists and clergy, and with national and provincial government bodies. I was trying to mitigate the harms of the decision, particularly in the protection of the vulnerable, and in defending the right of conscientious objection for physicians and faith-based organizations.