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Downie argues the government has an “obligation” to clarify boundaries and create a national oversight body “so the system can have and deserve the trust of Canadians.”

She said if an extension were granted, qualifications could be set out for exemptions, the way a similar compromise was made for assisted-dying crusader Gloria Taylor.

The B.C. woman, who suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease, was among the lead plaintiffs in the landmark B.C. Civil Liberties case that eventually found its way to the Supreme Court. Taylor won a court-approved exemption from the laws when B.C. Supreme Court judge Lynn Smith ruled Canada’s ban on physician-assisted death infringes on the rights of disabled people. Taylor ultimately died of a severe infection.

There won’t be a line-up of people waiting to die

Dr. Jeff Blackmer, vice-president of medical professionalism at the Canadian Medical Association, said the doctors’ lobby would support an extension, “as long as it’s not indefinite. He also expected it would support exemptions.”It would help with that balancing between making sure we have time to get it right versus not having people suffer unnecessarily.”

Elayne Shapray, who lives with MS and was one of the plaintiffs in the B.C. Civil Liberties case, said there are no grounds to put off the ruling.

“There is no slippery slope,” she said. “There won’t be a line-up of people waiting to die, or waiting to get a pill.”

In a 2013 affidavit to the Supreme Court, Shapray said her disease had progressed to the point “that I have resolved, given the absence of a legal right to a physician-assisted death, that I must take my own life without assistance while I remain able.”

On Sunday, Shapray said she doesn’t feel comfortable discussing her own plans, but that her health is now “terrible.”

While her mind “works perfectly,” she requires round-the-clock care. “I can’t feed myself, I can’t take myself to the bathroom, I can’t hug my grandchildren because I can’t reach out.”

“I don’t think people realize what that does to your self-esteem and autonomy,” she said, and “what it does to your privacy and dignity when nothing is private anymore, because you can’t do anything for yourself.”