Discourses of Assisted Dying

Assisted dying has gained public salience in Canada through mass media reports of a number of high-profile cases: Nancy B., Sue Rodriguez, Robert Latimer, Dr. Nancy Morrison, Dr. Maurice Genereux and Evelyn Martens (among others). Primary focus in this study is given to the Rodriguez and Martens cases, secondary attention to the others. The history of these cases, 1991-2004, as presented through news articles, letters, and opinion pieces in two Canadian daily newspapers, the Vancouver Sun and the Toronto Globe & Mail , is analyzed using an epistemological, rather than ontological, conceptualization of frame analysis. Qualitative analysis, supported by quantitative tabulations, of discursive elements are conducted to assess changes in the over-all interpretive frame of assisted dying in the two papers. A mellowing of the rhetoric and a movement towards the middle in attitude towards assisted dying is found, as well as a general sense that some form of assisted dying is both needed and desired in Canada.