Globe and Mail — February 1, 2001

Robert Latimer is being used as a substitute for a statute. Such public-policy shortcuts are out of place in a country that considers itself to be a mature democracy instead of a barbaric tribe in which human sacrifice is still practiced.
Courts must often write their rulings in terms of crude laws that fail to make distinctions which are beginning to be recognized as important, and when they find themselves in this situation they often give broad hints to the legislature. But Canada's parliamentarians have repeatedly turned away from working on new laws that adequately address the various ways in which we struggle to deal with progressive and incurable suffering.
Shame on our lawmakers, who are happy to purchase their collective comfort at a terrible cost to one unfortunate man.

Ruth von Fuchs, Toronto