I once had a friend who suffered terribly and tragically from a progressive illness with no remission or relief in sight. Over a period of several years, she descended into chronic discomfort and dread, punctuated with bouts of howling pain. This was back when MAID (Medical Assistance In Dying) was in it’s infancy in Canada. After months of paperwork and petitioning, she finally received approval for the procedure, only to have her neurosurgeon snatch it away just days prior to the scheduled moment.
With no other options for exiting the world she chose to stop eating, which she could barely do anyway.
MAID was - or rather, would have been - a godsend in her case.
Just a few years later, and I have another friend whose 92 year-old, hospitalized family member recently requested MAID. The time from her request to its fulfillment was a mere six days, my friend said. When something happens this quickly in a bureaucracy, it generally means it was rubberstamped without much of a review.
In the case of my first friend, she faced foreseeable death from her condition. But that requirement was eliminated in 2021.
“The new MAID law marks a significant milestone. ... [it] removes the requirement for a person’s natural death to be reasonably foreseeable in order to be eligible for MAID,” according to a federal government document.
And this is where some bad craziness comes in.
Yes, though details are still to be worked out, Canada will soon allow medically assisted dying for mental illness. That raises some questions. Doesn’t it make more sense to interpret suicidal ideation as indicative of a troubled mind and treat it as such, compassionately and professionally, rather than regard it an actionable need for nonexistence? Isn’t this putting the hearse before the cart? Or rather, the care?
The subtext of the Globe headline is telling. This apparently isn’t about whether or not its good public health policy to help mentally ill Canadians off themselves, but if there’s “been enough time to get it right.”
It would be one thing if the controversy was limited to the mentally ill and injured/traumatized veterans. Isn’t it curious that MAID’s mission creep appears to be extending to the poor? As noted in the Globe story, “the rising cost of rent and food is also taking a particular toll on people with chronic mental illness, who are often already the poorest in society – and the very candidates who will qualify for assisted dying under the new law.”
Dr Naheed Dosani, a palliative care physician and assistant professor at the University of Toronto, said Canada has reached a point where people are choosing to die 'not because they want they want to, but because they don't have adequate access' to proper health and social services.
More than 10,000 Canadians were euthanized last year, a tenfold increase on 2016 when the practise was legalized. In March, the law will change to allow mental health patients with no physical ailments to seek MAID.
- The Daily Mail
Things are moving fast. It appears MAID’s slippery slope is descending into a frictionless waterslide welcoming minors.
Canadians can’t get a driver’s license until they turn 18, but doctors from Toronto’s Hospital For Sick Children argue for extending MAID to minors. But here’s the most shocking part: parents aren’t required to be in the loop.
In a prestigious medical journal, doctors from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children have laid out policies and procedures for administering medically assisted death to children, including scenarios where the parents would not be informed until after the child dies.
Patient confidentiality governs the decision about whether or not to include parents in a decision about an assisted death, the authors said. If capable minors under the age of 18 stipulate they don't want their parents involved, doctors and nurses must respect the patients' wishes.
- The Catholic Register
MAID once offered a compassionate exit for the desperately sick and suffering, but now its bony finger will be beckoning veterans, the mentally ill, the poor, and minors to an early grave. I’d like to think this is all due to an overboard amount of legislated Canadian concern but I find myself pondering darker possibilities. In any case my half-baked speculations would be redundant; the headlines above are disturbing enough.
The question now is why is Canada is putting the hearse before the cart.
Your comments welcome.
“COMIC RELIEF” BREAK
Canada isn’t alone in end-of-life follies. Consider this thigh-slapper from Germany…
I remember that Dead Kennedys song 'Kill the Poor' from way back, seems their dark social commentary was just a little ahead of its time.
A friend who has a very debilitating and painful condition was given this option and almost went for it quite recently; and it would have been a mercy for him as the health system is in such a shambles and his needed operation was such a long time in coming. He held back from it though because of the way the option would be have been administered; someone on hand in case the pill given didn't work. Quite what that means I don't know, this friend of mine didn't elucidate, but for him this was no way to go.This guy, unfortunately, is still struggling, even after that much needed operation. This is a very nuanced and touchy subject that really doesn't absolve itself to easy solutions. I think, though, that it's essentially a cynical, easy, and budget conscious politically influenced solution at this time in history.