Canada's laws against assisted suicide were on trial in B.C. Supreme Court Monday, when lawyers representing critically ill people argued they should have the right to choose when they die.

BC Civil Liberties Association lawyer Joe Arvay told the court that things are different from 18 years ago, when the Supreme Court of Canada rejected Sue Rodriguez's plea for the right to seek a doctor's help to end her life.

"Many things have changed," Arvay told reporters outside the court.

"For one thing, we've had the experience of many jurisdictions that have allowed physician-assisted dying."

Doctor-assisted suicide is now legal in several European countries and a handful of American states.

The BCCLA lawsuit is spearheaded by 63-year-old Gloria Taylor, who suffers from ALS and says she does not want to spend the last days of her life paralyzed and in constant pain.

The case was fast-tracked to make sure Taylor would be alive to see it through.

Wanda Morris, director of the organization Dying with Dignity, says she's excited by the prospect of allowing assisted suicide in Canada.

Although helping other people kill themselves is illegal, suicide is not, and Morris says that means some critically ill people have chosen to take their own lives while they're still relatively healthy and happy.

"We know that for many of those people, they're having to go too early," she said.

"We've seen individuals who have been suffering and the peace of mind that they've got [from committing suicide], and we've seen others who have missed the window, and the agony that they've got."

Morris called Taylor a "hero for our ages," noting that the dying woman has a 13-year-old granddaughter with whom she wants to spend as much time as possible before the end.

"She doesn't want to go one day earlier than she needs to," Morris said.

In an affidavit sworn earlier this year for the assisted-suicide lawsuit, Peter Fenker made the emotional plea to be allowed to end his life with a doctor's help.

Instead, he died in hospital two weeks ago after what his wife, Grace, called four horror-filled days of watching her husband suffer.

"I will never forget the pleading look in his eyes as he asked me to help him and there was nothing I could do," she wrote in an affidavit read by Arvay.

ALS turned Fenker, 71, from a strong and healthy former logger into a withered shell of a man in just three years, the affidavit said.

He deteriorated to the point where he couldn't even turn the page on a newspaper.

"I feel like I have turned into a blob with useless limbs," he said in his affidavit.

"I would like my life to end in a dignified way, with the help of a doctor, and in a way that is not painful for my family."

Opponents warn of elder abuse

A couple dozen protesters gathered outside the court Monday to voice their opposition to the lawsuit, holding signs with slogans like: "Assisted suicide - a recipe for elder abuse."

One of the demonstrators, John Coppard, was diagnosed with cancer two-and-a-half years ago when doctors found a tumour the size of a cue ball in his brain.

He says that he experienced dark thoughts when he realized he might not ever be able to have children.

"I'm worried that if a law like this passes, people like me -- people who have been through some rough periods along their journey -- will take their own lives when they could have had decades to live," Coppard said.

With the help of new treatments and caring doctors, he says he's recovering and has hope for the future. Allowing people like him the option of doctor-assisted suicide would be "reckless," he said.

"If I have a relapse, and I'm in the hands of other doctors, maybe they'll steer me to suicide," he said.

Dr. Will Johnston, chairman of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition of B.C., says that allowing assisted suicide would encourage the abuse of vulnerable seniors in the name of greed.

"You still have people being taken to the lawyer; the will gets changed. You have people taken to the bank; the bank account gets emptied. Is the next step going to be getting taken to a doctor and a suicide prescription is written?" he said.

"There is simply no way that you can write a law that changes human nature."

But Arvay says that it's "nonsense" to suggest that the same doctors trusted with preserving human life would begin "scrambling to kill their patients" if assisted suicide is allowed.

"There's no evidence of it. This is just all scare-mongering," he said.

Countries allowing assisted suicide have safeguards to prevent anyone from being talked into suicide against their will. In Switzerland, for example, each assisted suicide is investigated by coroners, police and prosecutors to ensure that it was voluntary.

Russell Ogden of the Farewell Foundation calls the Swiss system "exquisite," and recommends that Canada adopt similar safeguards.

"In this way, there can be absolute certainty that nobody is going to assist in a self-chosen death believing that they can disguise ... a homicide or that they could exercise undue influence for personal gain," he said.

With files from The Canadian Press