MAiD Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

The global capital for assisted death is considering including mental illness as a legitimate reason for ending one’s life, but its euthanasia laws are fiercely criticised by human rights advocates

Mitchell Tremblay ran through all the mental health problems he had been diagnosed with: PTSD, borderline and histrionic personality disorders, major depressive disorder and, most recently, generalised anxiety and bulimia.

When he learnt this year that Canada was planning to widen its assisted dying legislation to include chronic mental illness, he saw a way out.

A woman undergoing life-saving cancer surgery in Canada was offered assisted suicide by doctors as she was about to enter the operating room.

The case comes as the number of people opting to end their lives under the country’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) program has risen thirteen-fold from 1,018 to 13,241 in 2022.

h/t Sweetpea

Euthanasia Dr. Ellen Wiebe has offered an inside glimpse into the job she “loves” where she has ended the lives of more than 400 people through Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).

In an interview included in a BBC documentary called Better off Dead by Liz Carr, a UK woman who is disabled and is worried state-sanctioned euthanasia could be legalized in her own country, Wiebe bragged “nobody is more grateful” than her patients and their families after refusing to shake Carr’s hand at the beginning of the interview.

Canadians normally feel a little frisson of delight when we get mentioned in other countries. We’re so used to being ignored that we bask in any attention at all.

But the kind of attention we’re getting in the British media these days is the kind we could do without. The U.K. Parliament is getting ready to debate a bill on assisted dying, and Canada is making the headlines as the prime example of how not to handle this delicate issue.

Assisted suicide now ranks alongside cardiovascular disease as Canada’s fifth leading cause of death.

When one thinks about the major causes of death for industrialized countries, a familiar number of ailments come to mind — cancer and heart disease, for instance. In the past few years, COVID has also ranked high in some countries’ mortality tables. But Canada has a new leading cause of death that is both shocking and surprising: death by doctor.

Swiss police say they have opened a criminal investigation and arrested several people after the suspected death of a woman in a so-called suicide capsule.

According to local reports, the capsule, named the Sarco Pod by its inventor, was used for the first time on Monday afternoon in a forest close to the German border in the Swiss town of Merishausen.

When the Supreme Court of Canada decriminalized euthanasia and assisted suicide, it tasked Parliament to create “a stringently limited, carefully monitored system of exceptions.” Instead, within a decade, Canada created the world’s largest and fastest-growing euthanasia program, a trend that we wrote about in a recent report for Cardus.

Tired, in pain and worried about being a burden to his family, a 44-year-old Quebecer suffering from long COVID has requested medical assistance in dying.

To be legally eligible for MAID, one must have a serious and incurable illness, experience persistent and unbearable suffering, and make the request in a free and informed manner. Since 2021, in Canada, people whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable are eligible.

This fast-moving graph might shock you. ⚠️

Hit play to see the rapid rise in euthanasia in #Canada. Canada is now the world’s fastest-growing assisted-dying program. 🍁

Read the full report right here: https://t.co/arFWeLzGL0 pic.twitter.com/8K0KYRQYcj

— Cardus (@cardusca) August 7, 2024

Canada’s assisted dying regime could provide a cover for medical staff with “serially homicidal personalities,” according to a controversial paper critics say provides no evidence patients could be preyed upon by criminal medical murderers.

“Canada’s MAID (medical assistance in dying) system is criticized as the most permissive or least safeguarded in the world, raising the question of whether it could protect patients who fit the clinical profile of adult victims of HSK (health-care serial killers) from a killer working as a MAID provider,” Christopher Lyon, a Canadian social scientist who teaches at the University of York in the United Kingdom, wrote in a newly published paper.

Many years ago, aged 19, I travelled alone out of Kathmandu where I had been living as a bum for some months, my destination being the ancient temple complex of Bhaktapur. On the way, my tuk-tuk driver stopped at a small settlement to buy some bottled water. As I refreshed myself with a cold drink, I looked around at the little village beyond the staring faces of gathering residents. I decided that Bhaktapur could wait a day; I wanted to stay the night there in that village. With the locals, I communicated with big smiles, positive sounding noises, and the universal sign for ‘good’: giving a thumbs-up. Soon, my tuk-tuk driver was heading back to the capital without me, and I had found somewhere to sleep. Some villagers led me up a hill at whose foot their primitive buildings were strewn. A little way up, I was brought to a small hut wherein the elders sat.