For the second time, a Manitoba judge has granted a patient the right to die with the help of a doctor.

This time, the patient is living with ALS, a terminal neurodegenerative disease.

The woman, who cannot be named due to a publication ban, has lived with ALS since 2012.

She wasn’t in court Friday, but her lawyers read a statement.

“No one gives you a medal for dying,” she wrote. “I will miss my family and friends, but I am completely at peace with the decision I have made to seek out a physician-assisted death - it is the best option for me.”

Allison Fenske, one of the woman’s lawyers, told the judge the woman’s health has rapidly deteriorated recently. Fenske said her client lives in constant fear of choking to death. 

In a statement read by her lawyer in court, the patient said:

“Because of my ALS, I have no control over my life. I would like the peace and some satisfaction of some control over my death. I feel like I am in a perpetual state of saying goodbye to the people I love and I have had enough.”

Second case in Manitoba

In March, a Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench judge Glenn Joyal ruled a patient has the right to die with the help of a doctor.

The Supreme Court struck down a law last year that prohibited medical aid in dying. The federal government is now working toward a June 6 deadline to craft new legislation and anyone who wants an assisted death sooner can apply to a judge.

In court, the patient’s lawyers argued the woman meets the criteria to be considered. They say she is a competent adult who consents to the termination of her life and has a grievous and irremediable medical condition that causes the applicant to endure suffering that is intolerable.

“I’m aware the decision to use or not use the authorization is entirely mine to make,” the patient said in an affidavit.

Publication ban

In Manitoba’s two rulings which granted the patient the right to die, the identity of both the patient and any health care professionals were protected by a court order.

An affidavit said releasing that information could cause “professional and personal harm” to the physician’s involved and if the names were made public.

“It’s not intended to be a muzzling,” said Helga D. Van Iderstine, the lawyer representing the physicians involved in this case. “Six months from now, a year from, now things may be very different.”