The Alberta government recently tightened rules around Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), limiting it to those with terminal illness who will die within 12 months. This move has sparked debate about who deserves the right to a dignified death.
Unequal Access to MAID
Most Canadians can choose to die with dignity, without pain, and surrounded by loved ones. But some Canadians—those with mental illness as their sole underlying condition—likely will be prohibited from this option based on public opinion and predicted government decisions.
This is what Canada is offering some citizens: no choice. No choice to live or die except by their own hand and whatever means are available. The shock, horror, and grief that follow a suicide are devastating, as Catherine Ford notes from personal experience. The public often responds with contempt, not kindness, to those left behind.
The Special Joint Committee's Recommendation
The Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying recommended that Canadians whose sole underlying disease is mental illness be barred from accessing MAID. The fear is that access would put vulnerable people at risk. However, four senators on the committee recommended sending the decision to the Supreme Court.
Ford argues this should not absolve the Canadian government from making the right and humane decision when Parliament sits in the fall. She expresses skepticism that the government will act.
Political Cowardice on Choice
Successive Canadian governments have punted MAID down the road, much like the question of abortion—both fundamentally about choice. Ford attributes this to either cowardice or political sidestepping, pandering to fringe groups of fearmongers.
Being on the leading edge of choice in North America has never sat well in Ottawa. Ford suggests foot-dragging may come from the influence of the Christian right in the U.S. Yet Canada has embraced choice, not without controversy, but through ongoing efforts by advocates who believe all individuals have agency over their own bodies.
The Principle of Equal Rights
Ford concludes that everyone should have the same and equal rights. The entire premise behind MAID is freedom to choose. Excluding mental illness denies that freedom, treating those with mental illness as dependent children incapable of making their own decisions.
