Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide programme has created “a system of structural abandonment” where loved ones are dying because of “unmet medical or social needs”, according to two members of the Chief Coroner of Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Review Committee (MDRC).
Dr Ramona Coelho, a family medicine practitioner and adjunct research professor, and David Shannon, a Canadian lawyer and disability and human rights activist, published an expansive article criticising Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide programme based on their extensive experience as part of Ontario’s MDRC.
The two insiders said that “Canada’s experience with MAiD has become a cautionary tale of how legali[s]ed euthanasia and assisted suicide can erode into a system of structural abandonment”, to the extent that it has become the “default response to unresolved suffering driven by poverty, disability, mental illness, and social isolation”.
Euthanasia was first legalised in Canada in 2016 for those who may have had a reasonably foreseeable natural death as a result of a medical condition. This legislation was expanded in 2021 so that an individual’s death did not have to be reasonably foreseeable to access MAiD, known as Track 2.
Criticising the expansion of the eligibility criteria, Coelho and Shannon said “[N]early half of Track 2 MAiD deaths involved suffering from loneliness or isolation, while almost half indicated that they felt like they were a burden”.
“Ontario’s MAiD Death Review Committee (MDRC) found most Track 2 recipients were low-income and 61 per cent were women, a group statistically more likely to attempt suicide yet recover with care. Less than half received mental health or disability supports and less than 10 per cent received housing or income assistance”.
They added “MAiD providers have described ending lives where suffering due to poverty, loneliness, or obesity was driving the request for MAiD”.
Coelho and Shannon are calling for the abolition of Track 2, to “[r]emove the pathway for persons whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable, including those with physical disabilities and mental illness”.