News

The Supreme Court of Canada will go ahead later this year and set a
legal framework for when patients in a vegetative state can be withdrawn
from life support.

The court rejected a request this morning from the family of a severely
ill Toronto man, Hassan Rasouli, to withdraw the case from its docket on
the grounds that Mr. Rasouli recently passed into a higher degree of
consciousness.

It provided no reasons for its decision. However, its ruling made it
clear that the court does not consider the legal issues to have lost
their importance because of slight improvements in Mr. Rasouli’s medical
status.

Mojgan Rasouli, Mr. Rasouli’s daughter, told reporters that the family
accepts the fact that the case has come to represent an important
medical issue that goes beyond her own family’s immediate plight.

“I am proud that my father’s case will be heard and will settle the law on the issue of the end of life for all Canadians.”