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10 McGill J.L. & Health S1 (2016-2017)

handle is hein.journals/mcghealp10 and id is 1 raw text is: 




McGLL   JOURNAL  OF LAW AND  HEALTH  ~ REVUE DE DROIT ET SANTE DE MCGILL


CARTER, MEDICAL AID IN DYING,

         AND MATURE MINORS


           Constance MacIntosh *


The  Supreme  Court of Canada's decision
in Carter v Canada  (AG)  decriminalized
medical aid in dying in certain defined cir-
cumstances. One  of those circumstances
is that the person seeking assistance be an
adult. This article argues that the regu-
latory response to this decision must ap-
proach the idea of adult in terms of the
actual medical-decisional capacity of any
given individual, and not rely upon age as
a substitute for capacity. This article surveys
jurisdictions where minors are included in
physician-assisted dying regimes, and iden-
tifies what little empirical evidence exists
regarding requests from minors. The heart
of the article considers the jurisprudence on
mature minors and when  they are deemed
to have the right to require the withdrawal
of, or refuse to receive, life-sustaining treat-
ment, and compares the reasoning in these
cases with that in Carter. A particular focus
of this article is on how the jurisprudence
approaches decisional capacity when the
individual in question may be particularly


La d6cision de la Cour supreme du Canada
dans Carter v Canada (PG), 2015 CSC  5,
a d6criminalis6 l'aide mdicale a mourir
dans certaines circonstances d6finies. Une
de  ces circonstances conceme  le statut
d' << adulte >> de la personne cherchant a ob-
tenir cette aide. Cet article soutient que la
rdponse r&glementaire a cette d6cision doit
considdrer l'idde du patient << adulte >> sur le
plan de la capacit6 d6cisionnelle de chaque
individu, plutbt que de se fier a l'ge comme
substitut de la capacit6. Cet article 6tudie les
juridictions of les requdtes des mineurs sont
incluses dans les regimes r&glementaires
d'aide mdicale a mourir et identifie le peu
de donndes empiriques qui existent concer-
nant les requdtes provenant de mineurs. Au
ccrur de cet article se trouve lajurisprudence
sur les mineurs matures et les circonstances
considdrdes comme  6tant suffisantes pour
leur accorder le droit de refuser ou de cesser
de recevoir les traitements de maintien de
la vie. On y retrouve 6galement une com-
paraison du raisonnement de ces d6cisions


*   Director, Dalhousie  Health Law  Institute, and Associate Professor of Law,
    Schulich  School of Law. I am deeply  grateful to Jocelyn Downie for holding
    a workshop   to consider the implications of the Carter decision, and to my
    colleagues for their comments on  an earlier draft of this paper, including Gil-
    lian Calder, Jodi Lazare, Joanna Erdman, Sheila Wildman,  Debra  Parks, Kim
    Brooks,  Elaine Craig, and Michelle  Giroux. I am  also grateful to the three
    anonymous   peer reviewers, for their helpful comments and suggestions.

                         0  Constance MacIntosh  2016

   Citation: Constance MacIntosh, Carter, Medical  Aid in Dying, and Mature
                  Minors  (2016) 10:1 McGill JL & Health  S1.

 Rf6rence   : Constance MacIntosh, << Carter, Medical Aid in Dying, and Mature
                 Minors  >> (2016) 10: 1 RD & sante McGill 51.

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