DES MOINES, Iowa – Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines urged state lawmakers to pass legislation that would legalize medical marijuana.

If the Supreme Court of Canada says Canadians have a right to a doctor’s help in committing suicide, Ottawa South MPP John Fraser says we also have a right to timely access to quality palliative care.

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.

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 - Parliament should improve access to palliative care across Canada and ensure proper safeguards are implemented concerning assisted suicide, recommends a government panel in a report issued Jan. 18.

MONTREAL - After 30 years in palliative care medicine, Dr. Bernard Lapointe is adamant that regardless of what the law says he will never euthanize a patient. He is among thousands of law-abiding Quebec doctors who are facing some of the most difficult days of their professional careers as the province hurtles towards Dec. 10 and the legalization of euthanasia.

MONTREAL - Quebec's new end-of-life care law will go into effect Dec. 10, and at least one of its 31 palliative care facilities announced that it will be offering medically induced death, or assisted suicide.

LOS ANGELES - After the California Senate voted to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the state, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez called it the wrong response to a "public health crisis."

CHICAGO - Cardinal Francis E. George, the retired archbishop of Chicago who was the first native Chicagoan to head the archdiocese, died April 17 at his residence after nearly 10 years battling cancer. He was 78.

TORONTO - If death is a part of life then we shouldn’t die alone any more than we should live in isolation. Our deaths should not be coldly institutionalized any more so than our lives. Our deaths should be as surrounded by family, love and compassion as the lives we lived.

After years of repeated delays and lack of communication, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has finally announced that money for its on-call palliative care program is on its way.

VATICAN CITY - Legalizing euthanasia risks undermining people's access to loving, holistic care as they face the natural end of their life, many experts at a Vatican conference said.

VATICAN CITY - The most serious ailment the aged face and the greatest injustice they suffer is abandonment, Pope Francis said.

Hang on for dear life.

Unfortunately, the dearness of life seems to be dying a not-so-slow death.

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.