A Canadian judge has stopped for now the planned medically-assisted suicide (MAID) of a 27-year-old autistic woman.

Justice Anne Kirker ruled in favor of the woman’s father, who appealed another judge’s decision to allow the medically-assisted suicide to move forward.

Justice Colin Feasby previously ordered an injunction stopping the woman from ending her life be lifted.

Feasby ruled that preventing the woman from obtaining medically-assisted suicide would cause her irreparable harm.

According to LifeSiteNews, Kirker issued a stay of the injunction “pending a determination of an appeal in the case.”

LifeSiteNews reports:

As a result, the woman will not be allowed to die by euthanasia until the Court of Appeal makes a final decision in the case.

Kirker ordered a stay on the injunction to “prevent the death of the 27-year-old autistic woman until after the appeal is heard.”

Schadenberg said that this case “concerns me greatly since I have an autistic son.”

The trial has been tentatively set to start in October. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has said that it “will seek to intervene in the Appeal.”

As there is a publication ban in place, the young woman in the case is identified as MV and her father is listed as WV.

Late last month, LifeSiteNews reported that a Calgary judge ruled that the autistic, non-terminally ill young woman could go ahead and be put to death via euthanasia despite objections from her father.

According to Feasby’s summary of her father’s position, he believes MV “is vulnerable and is not competent to make the decision to take her own life.”

“He says that she is generally healthy and believes that her physical symptoms, to the extent that she has any, result from undiagnosed psychological conditions,” CBC reports.

The outlet said MV’s only known diagnoses described in court are autism and ADHD.

CBC reports:

On March 11, when M.V.’s lawyers asked the judge to set aside the interim injunction, W.V.’s counsel asked for the injunction to continue and for a judicial review to be ordered that would examine how the daughter obtained MAID approval.

Currently, two doctors or nurse practitioners have to approve a patient for MAID.

Feasby heard that two doctors were initially approached by M.V. One agreed to sign off on approving her for MAID, the other denied the application.

A third “tie-breaker” doctor, as described by lawyers for Alberta Health Services, was then offered to M.V.

Her father took issue with the third doctor who signed off on M.V.’s MAID approval “because he was not independent or objective.”

At the March 11 hearing, Sarah Miller, counsel for the father, called the situation “a novel issue for Alberta” because the province operates a system where there is no appeal process and no means of reviewing a person’s MAID approval.

Alex Schadenberg, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Executive Director, writes:

CBC News reported on March 12, 2024 on the Calgary court case concerning a father who petitioned the court to prevent the euthanasia death of his 27-year-old autistic daughter, who lives at home. The father stated that his daughter did not have a medical condition that qualifies under the law and yet the daughter had already been approved for death by lethal poison.

CBC News reporter, Meghan Grant reported on March 25, 2024 that Justice Feasby ruled that the 27-year-old daughter can die by euthanasia despite her father’s concerns. Justice Feasby withdrew the temporary injunction that prevented the woman from dying by euthanasia but maintained a 30 day stay of the injunction, which gave the father time to appeal the decision.

Justice Feasby ordered an assessment of the role of Alberta Health Services with relation to the approval of euthanasia for the daughter.

On April 2, 2024, Kevin Martin reported for the Calgary Herald that the father of the 27-year-old autistic woman appealed the decision to the Alberta Court of Appeal.

On April 8, Justice Anne Kirker ordered a stay on the injunction to prevent the death of the 27-year-old autistic woman until after the appeal is heard. The date of the appeal is not known but will likely be heard in October.

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