TORONTO -- Canada's new assisted suicide law to be announced on Thursday will exclude non-Canadians, which means Americans won't be able to travel to Canada to die.
A senior government official told The Associated Press late Wednesday the new law will exclude non-Canadians, precluding the prospect of suicide tourism from the U.S. and elsewhere. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details ahead of the Thursday morning announcement.
The law will also will exclude those who experience mental illness or psychiatric conditions. It will also ban advance consent. That is, it won't allow requests to end one's life in the future.
The Supreme Court last year struck down laws that bar doctors from helping someone die, but put the ruling on hold while the government came up with a new law. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government asked for a four-month extension to come up with the new law. Canada's justice minister is due to announce details on Thursday.
Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, Germany, Albania, Colombia, Japan and in the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico and Montana. The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg allow doctors, under strict conditions, to euthanize patients whose medical conditions have been judged hopeless and who are in great pain.
It has been more than 20 years since the case of another patient with Lou Gehrig's disease, Sue Rodriguez, gripped Canada as she fought for the right to assisted suicide. She lost her appeal but took her own life with the help of an anonymous doctor in 1994, at the age of 44.
