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 Striking down, as unconstitutional, the Criminal Code provision prohibiting assisted suicide, as the Gloria Taylor case does, in effect legalizing physician assisted suicide, is a very bad idea and a step backward for Canada and Canadian values, ethics and law. Not least because it will, inevitably, lead to legalizing euthanasia.

Legalizing assisted suicide or euthanasia raises issues, not only, at the level of individuals like Ms. Taylor who wants access to assisted suicide – the micro level – but also at the meso or institutional level – impact on health-care professions and hospitals; and at the macro or societal level – impact on some of our most important shared values that provide the glue that binds us as society.

Taking all this into account, the assisted suicide/euthanasia debate comes down to a direct conflict between the value of respect for human life, on the one hand, and individuals’ rights to autonomy and self-determination – the value of “choice” – on the other.