In the wake of the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling that the ban on medically assisted suicide is unconstitutional, provincial governments have a lot of work to do — and a lot of eyes on them while they do it.

On Feb. 6, the nine Supreme Court judges unanimously ruled the Criminal Code ban on physician-assisted suicide infringes on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and struck down the prohibition on doctor-facilitated suicide.

While doctor-assisted death is no longer a crime, there won’t likely be any forward movement on what actual medical practices will look like until next year.

Provincial governments and the federal government now have the unenviable task of crafting the rules and regulations for this new aspect to Canada’s death care.

The ruling applies to “competent adults” who “clearly consent” to ending their lives and who have “grievous and irremediable medical conditions.”

The exact criteria of these stipulations are not contained in the Supreme Court ruling, but that’s what the next steps are for.

At this point, the ruling struck down Section 241 under the Criminal Code of Canada, which states it’s a criminal offence for a person to offer counsel or aid and abet a person in dying by suicide.

The Supreme Court has given governments — provincial and federal — a year’s time to come up with their own drafts of legislation dealing with this new right to die.

Several European countries and even some states in the U.S. have legislation on physician-assisted suicide that could help Canada’s provinces set up shop.

Last year, Québec even forged ahead on its right-to-die legislation after that province’s government deemed health care a provincial matter.

Bill 52: An Act Respecting End-of-Life Care contains a stipulation about a waiting period between the time of the formal, written request for assisted suicide and the act itself.

It also requires assessment of mental competency in consenting to death by two physicians.

One of the biggest stipulations in Bill 52 is patients must be terminal to qualify for physician-assisted suicide.

The Supreme Court’s recent ruling has brought a burgeoning debate to the forefront of Canadian rhetoric.

Critics say it’s not for people to decide who lives and who dies, and in effect, they are “playing God” with life.

Proponents say it puts the ultimate expression of autonomy, people’s power to choose to live or die, where it belongs: in their own hands.

Belief in a higher power or fate notwithstanding, critics fear this type of legislation opens the door for vulnerable people, including those with intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses, to be coerced into committing medically-facilitated suicide.

This is obviously not the intention of the ruling, as coercion goes directly against the autonomous choice to end one’s life.

However, the ruling does not only apply to those with terminal illnesses, but those in enduring psychological distress as well.

This is expected to give rise to more challenges for governments to address in their provincial legislation.

For example, a person with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease knows her brain functioning will eventually deteriorate to the point that she could suffer immensely.

She may first lose the ability to perform basic tasks, such as feeding and dressing herself, as her neural pathways dissolve.

In her last years of life, she may have incontinence, and lose her ability to speak or walk and require round-the-clock care.

Knowing she will eventually suffer from the disease, could she consent to physician-assisted suicide before her brain functioning slips away?

A similar case was chronicled by Gillian Bennet, a Bowen Island woman who wrote about her decision to take her own life before her dementia did on her website deadatnoon.com.

There will never, ever be a scenario in which every person agrees on the criteria of life and death.

Of course, doctors also have Charter rights, which include the right to refuse to facilitate medical suicides.

Perhaps for the Canadians who don’t fear death but welcome it, this ruling has exposed the masses to the devastation that irresolvable health issues can have on lives.