MAiD Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

Four-and-a-half years after he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a Dutch teen was euthanized at his request.

The boy, aged between 16 and 18, had described his life as “joyless.” He’d struggled with anxiety and mood-related problems, and where he fit in, in the world. Oversensitive to stimuli, “every day was an ordeal he had to get through,” according to the latest annual report from the Netherlands’ regional euthanasia death review committees. “In the final weeks before his death, he lay in bed the whole time.”

Called a “medical error” by physician Romayne Gallagher, palliative care options for Canadians seem to be few and far between.

This is a problem Canada has faced for years — and instead of solving it, many are resorting to euthanasia.

Those who opt for Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program, or MAiD, under Track 1, which includes patients whose deaths are “reasonably foreseeable,” must experience unbearable suffering from a grievous or irremediable illness.

Dr. Menno Oosterhoff leaned forward in his living-room chair, took a sip from his coffee mug, and told me about the first time he ended a patient’s life.

She was 18 years old and had been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, an eating disorder, and autism. Despite years of treatment, she was still bedeviled by negative thoughts, and she told Oosterhoff, a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry in the Netherlands, that she couldn’t stand any more suffering. He suggested deep brain stimulation, an invasive procedure sometimes used to treat severe OCD. She insisted that she wanted help dying instead.

Rushed, incomplete assessments, families kept in the dark, loved ones driven to choose MAID because of unbearable suffering.

A new study adds to growing evidence that Canadian families’ experiences with doctor-assisted death are deeply mixed, with some describing the experience as raw, traumatic and surreal — including sometimes oddly “cheerful” providers — and others describing caring and compassionate deaths for loved ones who’d “had enough.”

OTTAWA — Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski and Conservative Senator Yonah Martin will co-chair a special joint committee on the expansion of Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) program.

The two were acclaimed joint chairs at the committee’s first meeting on Tuesday night.

OTTAWA — With Canada a year away from including mental illness as a sole condition for accessing medically assisted suicide, many are expressing concern about expanding what’s quickly becoming normalized — particularly with young people.

That’s of concern to University of Toronto professor Trudo Lemmens, who said the program has morphed into one where medical assistance in dying (MAID) is quickly becoming a normalized form of therapy rather than an exceptional and compassionate option for unbearable suffering.

Canada is set to pass a grim milestone in its medically-assisted suicide program with a total of 100,000 citizens projected to be euthanized by the government before its 10th anniversary on June 17.

The Great White North’s MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) program will soon cross the sickly six-figure threshold, according to The National Post.

Ottawa’s most recent data shows 15,767 Canadians were euthanized by the state in 2024 — 5.1% of all deaths in the nation that year.

Last September, several media outlets reported that Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program – legalized in 2016 to permit doctor-assisted suicide – had reignited debate over whether newborns could be included at some point.

The debate began in 2022, during hearings before Parliament’s Special Joint Committee on MAiD, when Louis Roy of the Quebec College of Physicians suggested that eligibility could one day extend to “babies from birth to one year of age” that were born with severe deformities or disabilities.

h/t kiki9

People in Canada are having their lives ended by assisted dying on the same day that requests are made, adding to fears that wrongful deaths may be occurring.

An official report by the Chief Coroner of Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying Death Review Committee (MDRC) highlighted that, in 2023, 65 people in Ontario had their lives ended by Canada’s assisted suicide and euthanasia programme on the same day that they made their requests to do so. A further 154 people had their lives ended the day after their request was made.

h/t patthedog

If you want to glimpse Britain’s potential dark future, look west to Canada.

In 2016, Canada legalised Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) for the terminally ill. MAID was sold as a state-controlled solution to suffering, and came with all the usual reassurances that it was intended only for the dying, the desperate, and those with few other alternatives. Ten years on, it’s a machine for death.