In 1993, Robert Latimer, a farmer residing near Wilkie, Saskatchewan, killed his severely disabled daughter Tracy, in what he claimed was a loving act of mercy. His prosecution and imprisonment for murder attracted national and international attention, and raised contentious legal and moral issues concerning euthanasia. Tracy’s Condition Tracy was born on 23 November 1980, in hospital in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. During birth her heart stopped beating and she stopped breathing, resulting in severe brain damage due to oxygen deprivation. Medical staff revived her, but she began to have seizures. Tracy was rushed by ambulance to the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon where she was treated to reduce swelling in her brain and lessen seizure activity. Robert and Laura Latimer took their daughter home when it appeared that with medication, the seizures were under control. After several months, the seizures began again and increased in frequency. Over the next four years, doctors used various drugs to control them. They reduced the seizures to five or six a day, the number Tracy would endure daily for the rest of her life. However, the medication made Tracy lethargic, and exacerbated damage already done to vital functions such as breathing and digestion. Tracy had cerebral palsy, a muscular disorder she developed as a result of the interruption to the supply of oxygen to her brain. Her form of the condition was one of the most severe, because it affected her entire body. She was bed-ridden, with no control of her limbs.