I have no philosophical or religious (no mackerel snapper, I) objection to a terminally ill person deciding to end their suffering, but when the state gets involved, my hackles rise.
For now, medically- administered euthanasia is (usually) voluntary, but with people like Bill Gates and even a “friend” of mine arguing that the world’s maximum population is 1 billion, six billion of us are at risk, probably sooner than we might wish.
Canada’s doctors are raising grave concerns about a rising trend in euthanizing people who are not terminally ill.
Newly-unearthed communications reveal many physicians charged with carrying out assisted dying have found the loosening of criteria 'morally distressing.'
In 2021, Canada expanded its medical dying law to include people with incurable - but not terminal - illnesses, which led to a 30 percent increase in assisted deaths in 2022.
A doctor in Ontario wrote in his patient’s report that while the man had a severe lung disease, what drove him to euthanasia was ‘mostly because he is homeless, in debt and cannot tolerate the idea of (long-term care) of any kind.’
In another case, a doctor expressed their conflict at providing euthanasia to a patient simply because she was obese and depressed. Meanwhile, an elderly woman wanted to die because she was struggling with the grief of losing her husband.
An Associated Press investigation that involved obtaining internal data from the provincial government in Ontario revealed dozens of online posts by doctors on public forums.
Doctors provided the AP with messages shared on the private forums for assisted dying specialists on the condition of anonymity.
The messages came from doctors who both performed euthanasia and assessed people who requested it.
Many said they were uncomfortable with ending the lives of non-medically vulnerable people.
Others felt conflicted about providing euthanasia to people not suffering from terminal illnesses, but those experiencing grief or being obese.
One Ontario doctor who spoke with the AP revealed that their patient had severe obesity and depression, saying she felt like a ‘useless body taking up space.'
She had withdrawn from activities and social life and said she had ‘no purpose,' according to the doctor who reviewed her case.
While she was not actively dying, doctors said euthanasia was warranted because obesity is ‘a medical condition which is indeed grievous and irremediable.’
Meanwhile, a woman in her 80s petitioned for assisted death after losing her husband, sibling, and cat in a six-week period, according to AP reporting.
On top of that, she was on dialysis, an exhausting tri-weekly procedure that has someone hooked up to a blood-filtering machine for about four hours at a time.
But the official who reviewed her request said it had nothing to do with a medical condition - but rather it was because of her grief.
Because she had lost her support system, doctors said her suffering was permanent and thus approved her request.
Canada is on track to break euthanasia records once again with 15,280 doctor-assisted suicide deaths in 2023 — a 15 percent jump on the previous year, a campaign group warns.
Alex Schadenberg, director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, says ever-more people are approved for euthanasia even when they suffer from nothing more than 'frailty' and other seemingly benign conditions.
About 60,238 people have died from MAiD since the program was launched in 2016.
As part of its investigation, the AP obtained a copy of a classified report written by Ontario's Ministry of the Solicitor General which acknowledged past mistakes it has made implementing its expanded MAiD law.
One of these 'lessons learned' as the document puts it, was a case involving a 74-year-old blind patient with high blood pressure, a history of stroke, and other health issues.
The man was interested in MAiD due to his vision loss and lack of hope that it would improve.
The official report identified three instances where legal safeguards were not followed: no specialist in the patient's nonterminal condition was consulted, discussions about alternatives to euthanasia were limited, and the procedure was scheduled to fit the spouse’s preferred timing.
Another non-terminal patient euthanized was Rosina Kamis, 41. Ms Kamis had been facing eviction, needed a crowdfunding site to help pay for food, and was afraid that she would 'suffer alone.'
She also feared being institutionalized, and saw MAID as 'the best solution for all.'
She suffered from leukemia, but her condition was not terminal. She told her attorney that she was experiencing 'mental suffering,' not physical. The 2021 expansion of the law made it legal for people like her who are suffering from grievous and irremediable medical conditions but whose death is not imminent to qualify for MAiD.
Ms Kamis was approved for MAiD and chose to die on September 26, 2021, the date of her ex-husband's birthday. She passed away in her basement apartment after a doctor gave her a lethal injection.
As Canada prepares to expand its euthanasia law to include those with mental illness, some Canadians - including many of the country's doctors - question whether the country's assisted death programme has already moved too far, too fast.
January 13, 2023:
Dr Madeline Li can recall the first patient she helped die, about one month after Canada first legalised euthanasia in 2016. "I remember just how surreal it was," she said.
A psychiatrist at Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital, she recalled checking on her patient that day, asking if she had the right music and final meal, and if she was sure she wanted to go ahead. The patient, in her mid-60s and suffering from ovarian cancer, said she was.
Five minutes later, the woman was dead.
"It was like stepping off a cliff, that first one," Dr Li said. "Then time passes and it normalises."
She has since overseen hundreds of medically assisted dying cases.
Dr Li stressed repeatedly that a physician's personal opinions should not influence how they assess a patient for assisted death. But she has significant concerns about the expansion of Canada's euthanasia and assisted dying programme beyond the terminally ill. She is not alone.
Since 2016, Canada's medical assistance in dying programme - known by its acronym 'Maid' - has been available for adults with terminal illness. In 2021, the law was changed to include those with serious and chronic physical conditions, even if that condition was non-life threatening.
This year, it is expected to change again to include some Canadians with mental illness.
That planned expansion has ignited controversy over the assisted death programme as a whole and raised concerns that it may be too easy for the vulnerable to die in Canada. Those fears have been stoked by a recent string of reports suggesting that for some, death has been used as a stopgap for a broken social safety net.
A number of reports suggesting that some Canadians have opted for assisted death, at least in part because they could not afford adequate housing, have also prompted fears it could be used as a solution for societal challenges - that someone may seek out Maid because of poverty, lack of housing, or extreme loneliness.
"Leaving people to make this choice [to die] because the state is failing to fulfil their fundamental human rights is unacceptable," said Marie-Claud Landry, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission in a statement in May.
Others have pointed to what they describe as the programme's flimsy safeguards.
"The Maid law is very Canadian. It was left so vague it could offend nobody," Dr Li said.
The law, she said, "is not specific enough to protect people."
And then we have the eager beavers:
Last summer, Global News first reported a case where a veteran claimed to have been pressured by a veterans affairs case worker to consider medically assisted dying.
(Full article at the link, but you get the idea.)
