Seventeen years after Robert Latimer killed his severely disabled daughter Tracy, he is on his way home from prison.

Latimer has been granted full parole after serving his sentence for second-degree murder, but his case is still the subject of fierce debate on both sides.

Advocacy groups for the disabled say public attitudes about Latimer have slowly changed since he was convicted of killing his 12-year-old daughter by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Laurie Beachell of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities said Tuesday that groups such as his were shocked during Latimer's trial by opinion surveys that suggested most Canadians were sympathetic to the Saskatchewan farmer.

"We were surprised at how the Canadian public in this case somehow saw Robert Latimer as the victim, rather than Tracy," Beachell said from Winnipeg. "I think there has been some change, but the debate isn't over by any means."

Latimer called his act a mercy killing -- a term flatly rejected by the disabled.

In 1994, Latimer was found guilty of second-degree murder. The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal upheld his conviction and mandatory minimum 10-year sentence. The Supreme Court of Canada ordered a new trial in 1997, which concluded with another second-degree murder conviction.

The case was again appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled that Latimer had to serve 10 years and that he had other options to ease his daughter's suffering.

Beachell said Latimer's criminal trials and parole hearings over 17 years have helped give people with disabilities a higher profile in ongoing debates about mercy killing, euthanasia and assisted suicide.

He said the case helped the public see the girl as a person who enjoyed some quality of life instead of as someone who was better off dead because she was severely disabled by cerebral palsy.

"One of the positives of this has been a shift to say that when talking about end-of-life decisions, the voice of people with disabilities has to be heard," he said.

Michael Bach of the Canadian Association for Community Living said this shift in attitude is important as governments, the medical community and the public grapple with the idea of changing laws to make euthanasia and assisted suicide legal.

Bach pointed to public hearings underway in Quebec in which some groups have suggested that governments need to come up with rules to make it easier for people to die in a humane way.

He believes people who would support such changes are in the minority, thanks, in part, to the Latimer case.

"It is our sense that more and more people recognize that Canadians with disabilities are vulnerable to this kind of abuse and risk," Bach said from Toronto.

"Justice has been done. We want to move on but we never want to forget the lessons of the Tracy Latimer story."

But many proponents of assisted suicide believe Latimer was dealt with far too harshly.

Alan Borovoy, of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, says Latimer should have been shown leniency years ago.

"The behaviour of the Canadian administration of justice in this case has been nothing short of abysmal."

In Wilkie, Sask., Mayor Kevin Glessing said people are ready to welcome Latimer home.

"He's not a bad person. I think the majority of people in town will tell you that," he said. "I think he deserves to be out."