StarEditorial: We need to put the brakes on expanding access to MAiD and, while the matter is reviewed, improve social supports for those suffering not from terminal illness, but from poverty and despair.
In modern times, the Western world has not been comfortable discussing or gazing upon death.
In Canada, the debate about medical assistance in dying, or MAiD, forced us at least into consideration of the ways and means of death, how we would choose, should circumstances arise, to make our inevitable exits from the mortal stage. In very short order, however, Canada has become the world leader in MAiD. And we seem to have stepped onto a slippery slope.
He was sick and poor and lonely. He hadn’t been outside for five weeks because he could not manage stairs. But he was not terminally ill.
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Committee treating MAID as ‘beneficial solution to all forms of suffering’ despite ‘deeply problematic reports’ of its use, warn disability advocatesA law professor and bioethicist who appeared before the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying says he is concerned many committee members have “bought the Kool Aid” on MAID as a “progressive tool,” and the committee will support its expansion, despite the strong objections disability advocates continue to express. Trudo Lemmens, a University of Toronto law professor studying health law, told The Hill Times he is concerned about the coming recommendations from the committee, which is wrapping up witness testimony this week, and will begin work on its final report on Nov. 29. “I think a lot of people have intellectually and emotionally invested in medical assistance in dying, or even politically [invested in it],” said Lemmens on his views of the committee process to date. “They’ve supported this idea that medical assistance in dying is a nearly inherently beneficial solution to all forms of suffering that they are afraid of, or that they fear that their loved ones could be exposed to.” Trudo Lemmens, a University of Toronto law professor, said he is concerned the committee is too focused on hearing from MAID supporters. Photograph courtesy University of Toronto Early in its process, the committee passed a motion allocating time for witnesses in the five areas it would study. The motion set out 12 hours of witness testimony on three topics: expansion of MAID to mature minors, advanced requests for MAID, and mental health as the sole underlying cause for MAID. Eight hours were set aside for testimony on palliative care, and only five were designated for issues related to persons with disabilities. Lemmens said, in his experience, even within this time allocation, members put most questions to witnesses whose views supported the expansion of MAID, leaving witnesses like Lemmens mainly confined to their opening statements. “Because of the fact that they have so much focus on inviting people with already vested interest in the practice,” Lemmens said he i
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