Critics of Canada’s assisted dying laws to launch new court challenge
VANCOUVER — Just days after Canada’s physician-assisted dying law came into force, a 25-year-old British Columbia woman with a degenerative muscle disease is challenging it in court.
Julia Lamb who lives in the Fraser Valley city of Chilliwack has spinal muscular atrophy and worries her body will weaken and she will be left in a state of intolerable suffering because she doesn’t qualify for doctor-assisted death under the new law.
“My biggest fear is that if my condition suddenly gets much worse, which could happen any day, I will become trapped,” she told a news conference on Monday.
“I feel a shadow looming over me. I know I could lose the ability to breathe well enough on my own and require a ventilator, which could affect my ability to speak.”