"Canada Legalizes Physician-Assisted Dying"

NPR:  The new law "limits the option to the incurably ill, requires medical approval and mandates a 15-day waiting period," as The Two-Way has reported.

The Canadian government introduced the bill in April and it passed a final Senate vote Friday. It includes strict criteria that patients must meet to obtain a doctor's help in dying. As we have reported, a patient must:

"Be eligible for government-funded health care (a requirement limiting assisted suicides to Canadians and permanent residents, to prevent suicide tourism)."

"Be a mentally competent adult 18 or older."

"Have a serious and incurable disease, illness or disability."

"Be in an 'advanced state of irreversible decline,' with enduring and intolerable suffering."

Some lawmakers wanted to broader eligibility criteria that would include degenerative diseases, Reuters reports. "The key amendment that senators had been pushing for was to broaden the criteria for who qualifies for assisted dying," reporter Dan Karpenchuk tells our Newscast unit. "They had insisted that it includes suffering Canadians who are not close to death."

Ultimately, the senators dropped the amendment and adopted the bill with the more restrictive language – but Dan says the law will likely be challenged in courts.