The BLOG: Faith and Law

Lawyers and the culture of death

Lawyers in Canada were just enlisted into the culture of death, demonstrating why Massachusetts should not legalize assisted suicide.

In an earlier post, I remarked on “the potential, corrupting influence of legalization of assisted suicide on the legal profession.” I speculated that “as legalization statutes involve complex legal norms, they will necessarily involve lawyers.” I posed a hypothetical “lawyer who succeeds in persuading a court that the patient is acting voluntarily but turns out to be wrong in fact.”

In Canada, where the Supreme Court of Canada last year mandated the legalization of assisted suicide, this is no longer a matter of speculation and hypotheticals. The high Court there has ruled that those who seek medical assistance in killing themselves may petition a provincial superior court for an exemption from the general prohibition against homicide.

The new ruling says that the petition must be granted if the petitioner meets the criteria of paragraph 127 of the first ruling. Those criteria specify that the general criminal laws …

are void insofar as they prohibit physician-assisted death for a competent adult person who (1) clearly consents to the termination of life; and (2) has a grievous and irremediable medical condition (including an illness, disease or disability) that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of his or her condition.

Now lawyers in Canada will begin litigating which human beings are worthy of living and which are worthy of being intentionally killed. And judges must, as a matter of fidelity to their oath of office, decide which lives are worthy of living and which are not.

Adam J. MacLeod

Adam J. MacLeod

Adam J. MacLeod is a member of the Maine and Massachusetts (inactive) bars and an Associate Professor at Faulkner University, Jones School of Law. He is the author of “Property and Practical Reason” (Cambridge University Press) and dozens of articles in journals in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, many of which can be accessed at his website.