Opponents of MAID have a habit of pointing to the Assisted Dying law of our northern neighbor as a type of Wild West Free For All where almost anyone can be euthanised for the most contrived of reasons. They then pronounce the most over-used words in the debate over MAID-- the inevitable slippery slope. For them Canada represents a dystopian upheaval of the very purpose of medicine: to help people in medical need and to save lives. And despite protestations to the contrary by US-based MAID advocates and the statistical record of 28 years of practice across now 11 US jurisdicitons, without a single recorded instanace of an Assisted Death in contravention of the US laws and the rigorous safeguards, opponents just cite the most egregious case in Canada as proof positive that's where we in the US are headed.
MAID opponents in the US of course ignore the two most basic differentiators with Canada's law. In every US jurisdiction, an applicant must be diagnosed by 2 physicians that they are terminally ill, that is, as with admittance to hospice, they have less than 6 months of life expectancy. In Canada, the rule is much broader-- a person must be suffering from an incurable (not necessarily terminal) illness causing unbearable suffering. This means of course that someone with a cancer that might last several years could well be eligible. In the US by contrast, the applicant knows their days are numbered.
Secondly, the ultimate US safeguard against the idea of coercion or undue pressure is that the patient must be able to self administer the 5-drug cocktail on their own. This could well then prevent someone with severe Parkinson's or who is completely paralysed from being eligible, and as cruel an exception as that seems, that is the compromise reached to ensure that the patient themself makes the final decision to drink the medicine. Canada by contrast allows a doctor to intravenously deliver the medicine if the patient so requests (and 3/4 of Canadian patients do ask the doctor to make the injection). Thus in Canada euthanasia is routinely practiced; in the US euthanasia is treated legally as murder.
What does need clarificaiton is that the Canadian Assisted Dying law has eligilibilty criteria, a review process and various protocols which put to rest the canard that anyone can gain access to its MAID law. The best source of accurate informatoin is from CAMAP-- the Canadiain Association of MAID Assessors and Providers.
Below is a Q&A on the difference between the US and Canadian practices by Atty David Hoffman of the Completed Life Initiative, a well renowned advocacy group operating in the US.
