Canada has revealed the horror of assisted dying

Poor and disabled people are being encouraged to choose death instead of ‘burdening’ the state.

www.spiked-online.com

By Lauren Smith

Poor and disabled people are being encouraged to choose death instead of ‘burdening’ the state.

‘Assisted dying’, as it is euphemistically called, is often sold as a more compassionate, civilised alternative to suffering at the end of life. Those still gripped by this delusion should take a look at Justin Trudeau’s Canada, where so-called assisted dying has become a gruesome, state-sanctioned industry.

There is nothing remotely civilised about Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) programme. Assisted dying in Canada was initially considered a last resort for terminally ill patients suffering from incurable pain. But in the space of just a few years, euthanasia has been made available to pretty much anyone who is struggling with an illness or a disability. Even Canadians facing homelessness and poverty are feeling compelled to end their lives, rather than ‘burden’ the authorities.

Things are about to get even darker. In a few months time, on 17 March, Canadians will be able to apply for MAID on the grounds that they are suffering from a mental illness. If this expansion to the MAID programme goes ahead, anyone struggling with a serious mental-health condition may be eligible for either assisted suicide or euthanasia, even if they are not suffering from any physical pain at all. This would include people dealing with drug addiction or other substance-abuse issues.

In less than a decade, Canada has gone from legalising assisted dying in the tightest of circumstances – for adults suffering from terminal illnesses, for whom death was imminent – to offering suicide as an alternative to life’s woes. It amounts to a cautionary tale of the deep inhumanity, the cruel disregard for human life, that is unleashed when you introduce state-assisted death.

In December 2015, Quebec became the first Canadian province to allow euthanasia for terminally ill patients. Other provinces soon followed. In June 2016, the Canadian parliament passed legislation that changed the criminal code to allow terminally ill adults to access assisted dying across the country. This also established the MAID programme, which offers both euthanasia (a doctor actively ending a patient’s life with a lethal injection) and assisted suicide (giving the patient the means to end his or her own life).

At the time, MAID was sold to Canadians as a question of autonomy. The ‘right to die’ was presented as a fundamental human right. In 2015, the Canadian Supreme Court, in the case of Carter v Canada, ruled that denying someone assisted suicide or euthanasia denied ‘equality to the physically disabled’. Essentially, this ruling established that people have the right to be assisted to kill themselves, or be euthanised, provided that they meet certain criteria.

All of this successfully framed assisted dying as a merciful and dignified act. It isn’t fair, advocates said, that someone should be in pain during the final stages of their life, if death is near and foreseeable anyway. Surely it would be better for someone to end their life on their own terms than for them to suffer on in agony for a few months more? Or so went the argument.

Campaign groups like Dying With Dignity fought hard to portray MAID as a question of individual choice. The Canadian public seemed broadly to agree. In 2014, not long before MAID was introduced, 79 per cent of Canadians supported assisted suicide being offered in limited circumstances. Back then, Canadians were told assisted suicide and euthanasia would only be offered to those with a terminal illness and with only a short time left to live. But it didn’t take long for those restrictions to loosen.

In 2021, five years after MAID was first introduced, Canada expanded the eligibility criteria. Those with serious and chronic physical conditions became eligible, even when their illness is not life-threatening. This meant that a natural death no longer had to be ‘reasonably foreseeable’ for someone to be accepted for MAID. A long-term health condition that made life ‘intolerable’ was now enough. Applying for the MAID programme became significantly easier…