OTTAWA - Canada’s Catholic bishops called unanimously Sept. 18 for the federal government to invoke the notwithstanding clause in response to the Supreme Court’s Feb. 6 Carter decision on euthanasia and assisted suicide.

CORNWALL, ONT. - Bishops need to speak out to emphasize that euthanasia and assisted suicide are “morally reprehensible,” Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith told colleagues at the annual meeting of Canadian bishops.

CANTERBURY, England - British parliamentarians on Friday (Sept. 11) soundly rejected a right-to-die bill that would have allowed people with less than six months to live to end their life legally.

Ontario and several other provinces are following the federal government’s lead in assembling “expert” panels to research and make recommendations during a mad dash to transform Canada into a nation that permits doctors to kill selected patients or help these patients kill themselves.

Pundits and politicians agree: Ontario’s newly minted Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown is in a quagmire.

His problem goes something like this: social conservatives got him elected as leader but pro-life, anti-sex-ed voters aren’t nearly enough to bring the new guy victory in a general election. Sooner or later, they say, Brown must abandon his base.

OTTAWA - As the federal government prepares to begin consultations in order to draft euthanasia and assisted suicide legislation, the archbishop of Ottawa issued a pastoral letter that called on people to support a culture of life.

OTTAWA - With legalized euthanasia looming large over the House of Commons, a Tory backbencher has tabled a motion to affirm the right of free votes on matters of conscience.

OTTAWA - Campaign Life Coalition has announced “Let Life Win” as the theme of the 2015 National March for Life to be held May 14 in Ottawa.

EDMONTON - Jo-Anne Paquette’s three-month journey with Martha Shephard as she died from a brain tumour was both physically draining and a spiritual gift for Paquette.

A number of voices have called on the federal government to trump the Supreme Court’s assisted-suicide decision with the notwithstanding clause — the controversial section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which allows Parliament to pass laws contravening some rights and liberties for up to five years before legislators have to re-vote on the matter or craft new legislation.

ALBANY, N.Y. - As New York lawmakers began to consider a bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide, the New York State Catholic Conference launched a new website "to offer Catholics moral clarity and guidance on the church's teachings regarding end-of-life decision-making."

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 - A Supreme Court of Canada ruling that legalizes assisted suicide “is simply wrong” and indicates a society that “has lost its moral compass,” said Toronto Cardinal Thomas Collins.

SAN FRANCISCO - California legislators have introduced assisted suicide legislation modeled on Oregon's assisted suicide law, energized by the heartbreaking story of Brittany Maynard, a young woman with brain cancer, who moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Oregon to end her own life Nov. 1.

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.