The Assisted Dying Bill
The situation in Canada is not much better. At the very least, the Canadians have put an eligibility threshold within their legislation which restricts physician assisted suicide to those 18 years or older (Government of Canada, 2020). However, following the extension of the MAID legislation to non- terminal cases in 2021, there has been a 25% increase in the number of deaths from PAD in comparison to 2019 (Pullman, 2023, p. 65). In 2023, it was reported that Canada was the country with the most annual assisted dying deaths, ahead of the likes of the Netherlands and Belgium, despite the practice only being first legalized in Canada in 2016 (The Guardian, 2024). Moreover, there have been multiple controversial cases in the news where an unsuitable candidate was given lethal medication, most notably in 2022 when a 51-year-old woman called Sophia was granted PAD after being unable to find smoke-free housing for two years (Yuill, 2022). Sophia suffered from multiple chemical insensitivities, a disease that is not recognized by the WHO (Favaro, 2022), and yet it was still easier for Sophia to qualify for an assisted death than it was for her to find suitable housing without any smoke fumes. And Sophia’s story is not the only example of the Canadian assisted dying programme going too far. Four Paralympic veterans came forwards in 2022 about how they were offered euthanasia by government officials, including Christine Gauthier when she tried to have a wheelchair lift installed in her home (Hurley, 2022). Looking at the data, it is clear that assisted dying has gone wrong in Canada, Netherlands and Belgium. The practice has plunged into the slippery slope argument’s worst fears, no longer trying to help those who are suffering severely, but rather killing members of vulnerable groups who can easily be treated. However, there are other, more pressing issues with each country’s assisted dying protocol than whether each applicant’s death is reasonably foreseeable. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, euthanasia has been allowed for minors with parental consent – meaning infants can qualify for physician assisted suicide even though they cannot fully understand the consequences of their actions (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2017) (Wilkinson, 2023). Moreover, in all three countries the physician almost always administers the lethal dose, whereas in California medics are restricted to only being allowed to prescribe the medication. From this, it was found that 30-35% of Californians who were approved for an assisted death either never filled in their prescription or decided against it – showing that all they wanted was the option to die peacefully (Pullman, 2023, p. 68). Leadbeater’s Bill has appeared to have learned from the mistakes of her western counterparts and is modelled on California’s legislation. In her Bill doctors are prohibited from administering lethal medication, and anyone under 18 is not allowed to apply for physician assisted suicide. She has also introduced further safeguards, such as doctors being required to opt in if they want to be a part of the PAD process, and that the eligibility of each candidate must be referred to and approved by two independent doctors (Parliament, 2024, pp 7-11). Therefore, the chances of there being a slippery slope like that of Belgium/Canada/Holland if the current Assisted Dying Bill was extended to the non-terminally ill is less likely, although not impossible. So far, we have found that there is neither a public mandate for non-terminal groups to be part of PAD, nor substantial evidence that extending the Bill would not lead to a slippery slope where death is preferred to treatment. It is clear that there are very significant hazards that could likely arise from legalizing non- terminal euthanasia, meaning that, for there to be any reason for the Assisted Dying Bill guidelines to be
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