Canada Considers Bill to Euthanize People Who Cannot Make Rational Decisions

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The Canadian government on Tuesday introduced a bill that would allow Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), Canada’s preferred euphemism for euthanasia, to be conducted on people who have lost the mental capacity to give informed consent for the procedure.

According to Justice Minister Sean Fraser, the idea is to give Canadians a way to authorize euthanasia in advance, when they are of sound mind, “so their wishes could be respected if ?they are diagnosed with an incurable illness that could take ?away the ability to make this decision.”

Fraser promised there would be “rigorous safeguards to protect people and ensure the decision remains voluntary and free from external pressure.” He said, for example, that MAID would not be conducted automatically based on pre-authorization, but only for patients who are undergoing “intolerable suffering” and have lost the mental capacity to ask doctors to end their lives.

Fraser said the bill was drafted after a “rigorous study” by parliament demonstrated it was necessary, so that people in an “advanced state of irreversible decline in capability” would not be denied the life-ending services they had previously requested, based on existing rules against euthanizing people who have lost their mental competence.

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