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“Of course, I’m a coward. I don’t want to have any pain in my life,” she said. “I don’t know why somebody would prefer you to live in pain and misery rather than take your own life. I don’t understand that … All I know is I feel awful all the time.”

Her decision, which could expose family members who accompany her to criminal investigation, comes at a crucial moment for end-of-life law in Canada.

Canada’s criminal code provides a 14-year sentence to anyone who counsels, aids or abets a person to commit suicide, regardless whether death occurs.

It has been 20 years since Sue Rodriguez lost her Supreme Court bid to legalize assisted suicide by a 5-4 decision, but only three years since a 228-59 vote in Parliament rejected a Bloc Québécois MP’s effort to do the same.

As with the similarly fraught topic of abortion, the government has no intention of changing the law or writing a new one.

“This is an emotional and divisive issue for many Canadians,” said Julie Di Mambro, a spokeswoman for Rob Nicholson, the Justice Minister. “The laws surrounding euthanasia and assisted suicide exist to protect all Canadians, including those who are most vulnerable, such as people who are sick or elderly or people with disabilities. A large majority of Parliamentarians ultimately voted not to change these laws in 2010 – we will respect that decision, and have no intention of reopening this debate.”

In legal circles, the debate has turned on the case of Kay Carter, who in 2011 became the first publicly known Canadian to die at Dignitas, and only the tenth overall. Her case was merged with Gloria Taylor’s, who was granted a highly unusual exemption to the law that permitted her to seek physician-assisted death, although she died unexpectedly last year from an infection. That decision by a British Columbia court, in effect legalizing assisted suicide on Charter grounds, is now under appeal by the federal government.