Canadian Parliament rejects effort to protect persons with mental illness from assisted death
A bill to protect mentally ill people from physician-assisted death has failed to pass in Canada. On October 18, the Canadian Parliament rejected bill C-314, which seeks to prohibit assisted suicide and euthanasia for those seeking it solely for mental illness.
Despite the defeat, Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, said there was reason for hope as eight of the more liberal MPs voted in support of the bill, narrowly defeated by 17 votes. According to somethis is a sign that Canada and Parliament may not be uniformly in favor of assisted suicide.
Commentator on the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition’s “Tigrlily” blog website noted, “For me, this vote represents very strong news. Parliament is no longer in lock-step support for medical euthanasia. I hope that politicians and the general public are beginning to understand that no free choice to die while old, sick, disabled, racial, indigenous and other marginalized people have no free choice where and how we live.”
The defeated bill was sponsored by the Honorable Ed Fast, who previously explained the March that physician-assisted deaths for mental illness are already occurring. “Canadians don’t understand that people are being euthanized for mental illness when in fact it’s not even legal,” he said.
In March 2021, the Canadian Parliament voted to lift restrictions on assisted suicide in the country. At that time, the “Medical Assistance in Dying” or “MAiD” system of assisted suicide and euthanasia became the most libertine in the world. In 2021, it’s over 10,000 Canadians were killed by assisted suicide or euthanasia, and those numbers are considered to be not reported.
Since then, the experts have been sounding the alarm Assisted suicide and euthanasia endangers everyone, but particularly the most vulnerable people such as people experiencing disability and poverty and the elderly. Human rights experts are highly critical and concerned that Canadian law no longer protects vulnerable people but may actually put them at risk. The expansion of MAiD to include mental illness was previously delayed but is expected to proceed March 17, 2024.
Marie-Claude Landry, the CChief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission graduate that MAiD “cannot be a default for Canada’s failure to fulfill its human rights obligations.” According to a Associated Press articleagreed with Ms. Landry is the UN’s three experts on human rights, which is strong graduate that Canada’s MAiD law has had a “discriminatory effect.”
