My Take | Assisted suicide for being poor in Canada?
- If you are too sick and poor to live, Canada may help you kill yourself painlessly under a revised legally sanctioned procedure called MAiD, or ‘medical assistance in dying’
I used to think Canada had “universal” healthcare and generous social welfare for the vulnerable. Now I am not so sure. However, print space limits me here to consider only MAiD, or “medical assistance in dying”, a revised legally sanctioned process that I find profoundly disturbing.
I am not religious and am fully supportive of medically assisted suicide for the terminally ill to end their suffering, if they so choose.
That was the case under the original MAiD, but it has been revised and expanded since last year. Voluntary patients are now divided into two tracts. Tract-one patients are those whose natural death can be reasonably foreseen such as from a terminal illness.
The new tract-two, however, is for those who may be enduring an “intolerable” and “irreversible” illness, disease or disability, but who may not be near the natural end of their lives. Here, economic factors come into play. And from March 17 next year, people with a mental illness as their sole underlying medical condition may qualify for MAiD.
Consider several tract-two cases this year. In February, the assisted death of a 51-year-old woman under MAiD became a first in the world for someone diagnosed with severe multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS) because she could not afford housing that was free of chemicals such as cigarette smoke and air-fresheners.
In April, a 31-year-old Toronto woman was reportedly near final MAiD approval as she likewise suffered from MCS and couldn’t afford proper housing.