Lawsuit Filed to Legalize Assisted Suicide

After taking her mother across the Atlantic so that she could die in peace, a B.C. woman is taking on Canada's assisted suicide laws.

A British Columbian woman has filed a lawsuit to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill people still in control of their mental faculties. Lee Carter filed the suit with the B.C. Supreme Court after taking her 89-year-old mother, who had a degenerative neurological disorder, to Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal. In Canada, assisted suicide can net a 14-year prison sentence. Carter's efforts come 18 years after Sue Rodriguez, a B.C. woman who suffered from Lou Gehrig's Disease, fought all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada for the right to die as she saw fit, but who's case was ultimately rejected.