Assisted suicide in Canada is out of control. A lengthy investigation by the magazine The Atlantic denounces this, previewing what will happen in countries where it becomes legal.

---

 

It was supposed to be reserved for terminally ill patients; today it represents about 5% of all deaths.

This concerns assisted suicide in Canada, legal through the so-called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), the subject of an investigation by The Atlantic authored by Elaina Plott Calabro.

A powerful piece in the American magazine that is certainly not “biased” and that anyone should read to understand the fate reserved for countries where assisted suicide is legalized. Calling the scenario horror is an understatement.

In 2023 the people who died by assisted suicide numbered 60,000. In Quebec the percentage exceeds 7% of deaths, the highest rate in the world.

 

The slippery slope of assisted suicide in Canada

It is the country that realized all the predictions of critics, starting from the inevitable slippery slope.

The law was born only for seriously ill and terminal patients, then it was extended to people affected by illnesses but not at risk of death.

In two years it will be accessible to those suffering from mental disorders and Parliament is working to guarantee access for minors, with the obligation to consult parents but without requiring their consent.

Meanwhile, the Quebec College of Physicians raised the possibility of legalizing euthanasia for newborns born with “severe malformations”, a rare practice currently legal only in the Netherlands and which, it is specified, was “the first country to adopt it after Nazi Germany in 1939”.

Thus, it is read, “the demand for euthanasia began to outstrip doctors’ ability to provide it”. On the other hand the repeated desire of patients to die will always take precedence over any strict legal condition once the first opening is made.

Over time an innovative interpretation of “incurable medical condition” emerged, that is when it cannot be cured by means acceptable to the patient. The patient’s autonomy prevails above all and is unquestionable so, it is written, anyone with absolutely curable symptoms but simply not willing to be treated can access euthanasia.

“Many decisions about life and death,” writes the journalist, “are based on the personal values of doctors and patients rather than on objective medical criteria”. This is the view of psychologist Madeline Li, a pioneer of MAiD but today very uncomfortable with the degeneration her country has experienced.

“Being tired of life“ as a sufficient reason to access suicide, explains the psychologist, “theoretically is not legal. But the truth is that it is, it always has been, and it is happening“ in many cases.

The future of euthanasia, it is written, “is no longer under the control of the laws” and “the continuous expansion is not a reality the government is choosing, but rather allowing“. After all, if autonomy in death is an inviolable right, is there anyone who should not be helped to die? Why only terminally ill patients and not literally anyone?

Comments Elaina Plott Calabro: “It is not entirely correct to say that Canada slipped down a slippery slope, because staying away from it never seems to have been the priority”. And once the legalization of assisted suicide is started “it becomes extremely difficult to contain”.

 

Social pressure on the disabled and the elderly

Plott Calabro also recounts the shift from protecting individual autonomy to social pressure on the elderly and disabled.

“It is easier to access MAiD than to get a wheelchair”, admitted Carla Qualtrough, minister for disability inclusion. Many disabled people and chronically ill patients in fact report perceiving assisted death as the only possible way: “Almost half of Canadians who died because of assisted death considered themselves a burden to family and friends“, writes the investigation’s author.

Emblematic is the case of Sathya Dhara Kovac, affected by ALS, who wrote her obituary before dying by euthanasia: “It was not a genetic disease that killed me, it was the system“. After unsuccessfully requesting adequate home care services, she concluded that death was more accessible than life.

The testimonies collected by The Atlantic describe a country in which “citizens with disabilities are assisted more in death than in life”.

What is happening is that “many worried family members have no choice but to take their loved one to court to try to stop a scheduled death”, convinced that they are not able to decide autonomously and that the clinics they turn to arbitrarily and from time to time change the requirements to bring patients to suicide.

 

Apps and failed checks on irregularities

Elaina Plott Calabro describes the doctors who perform euthanasia as powerful corporations, who meet at conferences with buffets and DJ sets. In Vancouver she met several of them, including neurologist Gord Gubitz who considers euthanasia “energizing”.

“The difference”, comments the journalist, “is that, 10 years ago, what many of the participants do as work would have been considered murder”.

And then the total ambiguity of the Canadian situation.

The definition of “incurable condition” now includes not what is incurable, but what the patient does not intend to cure.

Not to mention the proliferation of apps that for $10.99 help you organize the “farewell ceremony”, after setting the death date on the calendar. For children there are even proposals for “pajama parties” in funeral homes or the painting of a coffin in a schoolyard.

The Atlantic also touches on the alleged “rigorous assessment of capacity to understand and will” that the law provides to proceed with euthanasia on patients with cognitive deficits. It is read that “of the hundreds of irregularities reported over the years” almost all are quickly dismissed and “no case has ever been referred to law enforcement for investigation”.

 

The ambiguity and chaos of the Canadian scenario

Not all doctors are in favor; some do it only out of a sense of duty.

What strikes us is what Jonathan Reggler, a doctor, says: “Once it is accepted that people should have autonomy, that life is not sacred and that it can be taken only by God, a being in whom I do not believe, then some of us must step forward and say: ‘We do it'”.

Another doctor, Claude Rivard, finally recounts a patient who calls to cancel the scheduled euthanasia, requested after a motorcycle accident that had left him blind and in a wheelchair. And he rarely received visits.

When the family learned of his intention, they began to visit him again and that changed everything: “I found pleasure in life again”, the man said, “family, children are coming. Even if I cannot see them, I can touch them and talk with them. So I change my mind“.

 

The Atlantic does not speak only of statistics or laws, it is a moral alarm: it puts before us the harsh reality of a society that prefers the death of its citizens rather than guaranteeing them a dignified life.