Normalizing Death as “Treatment” in Canada:Whose Suicides do we Prevent, and Whose do we Abet?

Ramona Coelho, Trudo Lemmens, K. Sonu Gaind, John Maher

World Medical Journal
World Medical Journal

Extract
MAiD deaths have increased dramatically year after year in the short time since Canada’s legalization in 2016. MAiD cases in Canada involve almost exclusively euthanasia, with death being administered by the health care provider via lethal injection. Within three years of its introduction in 2016, the death rate by MAiD had risen to 2% of all deaths. By 2020, the rate had increased to 2.5% of all deaths, and by 2021, it was 3.3% of all Canadian deaths, with some provinces approaching 5%. These figures largely represent the escalating death rates even before the government expanded MAiD to those living with disabilities in 2021 . . . In coming years, death rates are thus likely to increase even more substantially as euthanasia and assisted suicide for those not dying but living with disabilities will be more widely provided, as well as once further expansion occurs in March 2023, to those living with sole mental health disorders.


Coelho R, Lemmens T, Gaind KS, Maher J. Normalizing Death as “Treatment” in Canada:Whose Suicides do we Prevent, and Whose do we Abet? World Med J 2022 Nov;70(3): 4-7

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