MAiD concerns continue to grow

Opinion

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This article was published 14/10/2022 (1097 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CANADA’S medical assistance in death (MAiD) regime continues to generate concern as the number of cases increases, and as stories pile up about ill and disabled Canadians turning to MAiD to escape from poverty and lack of support.

MAID was first developed in 2016 in response to a 2015 Supreme Court ruling. Assisted death, under this law, was available only to Canadians for whom death was “reasonably foreseeable.” But the 2019 ruling in Tuchon vs. Canada found this limit violated Canadians’ charter rights.

Instead of challenging the ruling, the federal Liberal government went ahead in creating a new MAiD track for Canadians whose deaths are not reasonably foreseeable. Indeed, the government went even further, extending MAiD eligibility to Canadians suffering from psychological illness — a measure that will begin in 2023.

No one wants to see people in late stages of cancer, for example, suffering needlessly. The requirement of a foreseeable death was a reasonable limit placed by the government on who could access medically assisted death. An unelected and unaccountable Quebec judge did away with that limit. Without it, the train appears to have completely come off the tracks.

First, the number of MAiD deaths has ticked sharply upwards. The federal government’s third annual report on MAiD and its administration reports that 10,064 Canadians died under the conditions established by MAiD. That is a 32 per cent increase over the number of MAiD deaths in 2020.

Presumably, the number for 2022 will be substantially higher, given the removal of the requirement for death to be foreseeable. In fact, that number might turn out to be shocking even to staunch advocates of MAiD.

That alone is concerning. Even moreso is the increasing number of cases where ill or disabled Canadians are opting for MAiD in response to poverty or a lack of government support.

The most recent example occurred here in Winnipeg: 44-year-old Sathya Dhara Kovac ended her life using MAiD last week. Kovac suffered from ALS, but her death was not imminent. To the contrary, Kovak only ended her life because she felt as though she had no choice given a lack of home support options available to her.

“Ultimately,” Kovak wrote in an obituary to friends and family, “it was not a genetic disease which took me out, it was a system. … I felt like I had no choice but to end my life.”

Every one of these cases is troubling. Kovac’s was personally affecting to me because we are just a few months apart in age. Think about everything that has happened since you were 44 years old or, if you’re younger, everything that might happen, and then consider how Kovac’s opportunity to experience life was taken from her.

Her words, “I could have had more time if I had more help,” seared themselves into my memory.

There are many other examples of MAiD safeguards failing to protect marginalized Canadians. The most maddening of all are cases in which ill or disabled Canadians are presented with the opportunity for medically assisted death without a clear review of other treatment options. Some patients have reported feeling pressure to choose death, with one ghoulish administrator allegedly lecturing an ill senior citizen about the financial costs that would be associated with continuing to treat him in a hospital.

Indeed, Trudo Lemmens, a law professor at the University of Toronto, argues that Canada is “failing to implement even some of the most basic safeguards that actually exist in (other) countries” that also have assisted-dying programs.

As time goes on and the serious concerns associated with MAiD continue to pile up, it is not at all alarmist to think things are about to become much worse. In March, access to MAiD will be extended to Canadians suffering from mental illnesses such as depression, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions.

The government is moving forward without any reassurance doctors can determine whether a mental illness is irremediable. Despite the multitudes of treatments available, many Canadians with mental illness will be offered medically assisted death as an alternative.

And there may be even more coming. MAiD is currently only available to adults; however, the advocacy group Dying with Dignity and the Canadian Association of Social Workers, for example, support extending the right to access MAiD to minors under certain conditions.

And last week, a representative from the Quebec College of Physicians recommended to a parliamentary committee that MAiD would be appropriate for infants up to the age of one who are born with “grave and severe syndromes.”

This chilling suggestion was immediately opposed by the advocacy group Inclusion Canada, which expressed its alarm at the suggestion of “legal euthanasia for infants with disabilities under the age of one.” But it raises the question: with some advocates and doctors pushing for ever-expanding access to assisted death, when will the federal government step in to address the problems currently plaguing MAiD?

Royce Koop is a professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba and academic director of the Centre for Social Science Research and Policy.