On February 6, the Supreme Court unanimously struck down the laws against physicians helping someone end their own life (assisted suicide) and actively ending someone's life at their request (consent to death). Individuals seeking help must have a grievous and irremediable medical condition (which may be due to illness, injury or disability) to qualify, and assistance must be provided by a physician. These changes take effect a year from the court's decision: February 6, 2016.

Ignoring the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision and the overwhelming majority opinion in Canada, today’s National Post View uses long debunked arguments to once again claim that legalizing assisted dying will result in a “slippery slope” to utter moral bankruptcy (or something like that, they don't actually say). Here I debunk those claims, one by one.

Religious leaders are lobbying to stop a private member's bill in the UK that would allow physician-assisted dying. Russell Blackford, Conjoint Lecturer in Philosophy at University of Newcastle, argues in this essay (originally published on The Conversation) that their arguments are little more than propaganda and provide a poor basis for government policy.

The following letter was sent to the National Post in response to Christie Blatchford's article in today's paper about anti-choice protester Linda Gibbons who has repeatedly been arrested for protesting outside The Morgentaler Clinic in Toronto.

Students across British Columbia will be returning to classes next week. For many it will be their first time living away from home and for some it will their first time being exposed to new ideas and worldviews. Religious clubs are well established at BC universities (there are 20 different religious clubs at UBC alone). I need your help to make sure Humanists have a voice on BC campuses this year.

Through our weekly newsletter, we like to let you know about our upcoming events as well as a number of issues and campaigns that we think might be of interest to you. Let me know if you have any suggestions to include in future roundups. Email: [email protected]

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DISCLAIMER: The opinions which appear in the newsletter and in this roundup of all the news which didn't fit within the newsletter are not necessarily shared by all or even most of the members and board of the BC Humanist Association.

Are physicists more playful because they’re more religious?

Vancouver Sun spirituality reporter Douglas Todd seems to argue for this connection in his latest blog. His post was motivated by a quote from anthropologist David Graeber saying that “physicists are more playful than biologists.” Todd suggests this is echoed by opinion surveys that show “physicists are more likely than biologists to believe in some form of transcendent reality, which some might call God.”

Except Todd doesn’t reference any surveys that show that.

Everyday we see people walking around alone, looking a little downcast. But what we cannot see and cannot know is how isolated they are really. If they are one of the approximately 25 percent Metro Vancouverites seriously isolated then their isolation could be FOUR TIMES as damaging health-wise as obesity.

I find that statistic stunning and incredibly revealing. I am almost tempted not to believe it. But it comes from a man who is arguably the single best expert on this subject in the world, a man who has been head of the top organizations for psychiatric researchers in the USA. Professor John Cacioppo cites the damning number at the end of a clip I found on YouTube, a clip I have shown very widely since and which is intriguing to almost everybody who watches it. It is just ten minutes long, so I advise you to watch it too dear readers.

Through our weekly newsletter, we like to let you know about our upcoming events as well as a number of issues and campaigns that we think might be of interest to you. Let me know if you have any suggestions to include in future roundups. Email: [email protected]

And for the latest news items, be sure to like the BC Humanists on Facebook and follow @BCHumanist on Twitter.

Through our weekly newsletter, we let our members and supporters know about our upcoming events as well as a number of issues and campaigns that we think might be of interest to them. However it’s recently grown in length and has been difficult to read.

So we’re trying something new. From now on, each week we’ll be posting our news items of interest on our blog and linking to these posts from the newsletter. Then, those who want to explore more can do so while our newsletter is kept to a more manageable level.