Canada shows assisted suicide puts vulnerable in danger

As each Westminster and Holyrood consider their respective proposals to legalise assisted dying, each supporters and opponents of the bill look to Canada to see how such laws could play out.

Canada introduced Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) in 2016 and accounts for slightly below five per cent of all deaths within the country.

One of the concerns of opponents of assisted suicide is that it puts vulnerable people vulnerable to being killed. Such fears where shown to have validity this week, when Canada’s National Post covered the case of an elderly woman with dementia whose family requested she die by assisted suicide. 

The Post writes, “A frail woman in her late 80s with dementia received MAID after a member of the family ‘brought forward’ a request for an assisted death, a recent report reveals.

“The woman’s life was ended after a MAID provider deemed the lady had given her final expressed consent to proceed, based on her ability to repeat a matter and squeeze the provider’s hand.”

The report in query got here from the Office of the Ontario Chief Coroner’s MAID Death Review Committee. The case of the elderly woman was certainly one of half a dozen raised within the report that questioned whether proper assessments are being undertaken to be sure that those subject to MAID have the capability to consent to the ending of their lives.

Dr Ramona Coelho, a family physician based in London, Ontario, said the cases demonstrated the risks of MAID to the vulnerable.

Writing within the British Medical Journal, she said, “While MAID was meant to alleviate intolerable suffering when no alternatives remained, it as a substitute puts vulnerable people in danger, becoming a path of least resistance when barriers to care exist, preying on fear of being a burden and infrequently overlooking supports that might genuinely alleviate suffering.”

A legal opinion put together by Tom Cross KC, on behalf of The Christian Institute, has suggested that each the Scottish and Westminster bills proposing assisted suicide could fall foul of the European Convention on Human Rights, as they put the best to lifetime of individuals with disabilities in danger.