Woman wants assisted death rules eased

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.”

Lamb was diagnosed with the muscle disease at 16 months and required a wheelchair at age six, but she said she has lived a fulfilling life with a loving family and enjoys her part-time job as a marketing assistant.

The Liberal government’s Bill C-14 received royal assent on June 17. Lamb said she opposes the law’s requirements that a doctor’s help can only be given if death is reasonably foreseeable. “If my suffering becomes intolerable I would like to make the final choice about how much suffering to endure.”