Canada Is Still Confusing Assisted Suicide with Health Care

“Canada is Killing Itself.” This isn’t the hyperbolic headline of a fringe website but of The Atlantic, a nationally known, mainstream outlet. The subtitle is just as chilling: “The country gave its citizens the right to die. Doctors are struggling to keep up with demand.”

When Canada first legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia, proponents assured the public (as they frequently do) that not just anyone would be able to end their own lives. Individuals had to be adults with a “grievous and irremediable medical condition” causing them “intolerable suffering,” and who faced a “reasonably foreseeable” natural death, the law said at the time.

But less than a decade later, the practice has already been expanded beyond its original scope to individuals who are not imminently facing natural death. Some individuals in fact, would have a very real chance to live if treated. They just simply want to die.

In 2027, officials plan to expand assisted suicide to individuals facing only mental health struggles, and the Canadian Parliament recommended that it also be made available to “mature minors,” with “parental consultation” (not parental consent).

The result? Canada is embracing a culture of death, one that widely accepts and sometimes celebrates euthanasia, leading to even more deaths.

‘Medical assistance in dying’ 

Canada legalized both assisted suicide and direct euthanasia in June 2016, referring to them collectively as “medical assistance in dying” or “MAID”—euphemisms that distract from the dark reality of these practices. Originally, to be eligible for MAID, an applicant had to satisfy certain criteria. His or her natural death had to be “reasonably foreseeable,” among other requirements. 

Even under that criterion, assisted suicide is morally indefensible. But the requirement at least showed that Canadian lawmakers understood the need for some regulations on the practice. 

Still, it took less than five years for Canada to eliminate that guardrail. In March 2021, the country’s parliament passed a new amendment to the existing law that said citizens could be eligible for assisted suicide even if their death was “not considered reasonably foreseeable”; rather, they had to be suffering from “a grievous irremediable medical condition,” which is defined as “an advanced state of irreversible decline.” These new guidelines allow people who are permanently disabled or have chronic pain to be eligible. To see the effects of this alarming change, one must look no further than Amir Farsoud of Ontario. 

Seeking death over homelessness 

Farsoud is a middle-aged man who suffered a debilitating back injury years ago, and he now receives around $1,200 a month from the Ontario Disability Support Program. In October 2022, he told CityNews that his rent and bills left him with only about $7 per day for food. When the house he was living in was put up for sale, he began to ponder the unthinkable: choosing assisted suicide to avoid poverty.  

Farsoud said he wouldn’t be contemplating suicide were it not for his housing situation. But because of fears that he would not be able to find anywhere else affordable to live, he applied for assisted suicide and received a signature from a doctor confirming he met the criteria.  

Thankfully, Canada requires a minimum of 90 days to assess eligibility for MAID for someone who is not terminally ill and also requires the approval of two doctors. During the 90-day timeframe, Farsoud’s story was widely shared on social media. A stranger started a GoFundMe for him that ended up raising $60,000, and Farsoud told CityNews in November 2022 that he is no longer considering suicide.  

“I’m a different person,” Farsoud told the outlet. “The first time we spoke, I had nothing but darkness, misery, stress, and hopelessness. Now I have all the opposite of those things.” 

While Farsoud chose life, many others have not. As of 2023, the last year with available data, 60,300 Canadians had died by assisted suicide or euthanasia. According to The Atlantic, that’s about one in 20 deaths in Canada, more than Alzheimer’s and diabetes combined.

Canada removes even more safeguards 

As part of its March 2021 changes, Canada removed the waiting period requirement for those who are terminally ill and seeking assisted suicide or euthanasia. While people like Farsoud, who are not terminally ill, will still have a chance to rethink their decisions during the 90-day waiting period, terminally ill individuals can be pushed into assisted suicide without time to think through their decision.  

Instead of providing the most vulnerable in society with the quality care and support they need, the Canadian government has decided it would simply be easier to give them lethal drugs upon request. 

In addition, Canada plans to expand MAID by offering it to people suffering only from mental illnesses in 2027, and Parliament has recommended that minors should also have access.

In speaking to The Atlantic, multiple euthanasia providers showed just how callous they had become toward ending individuals’ lives. One neurologist from Nova Scotia said he found it “energizing” to euthanize people, and that it made him “so happy” that “you got what you wanted.”

More people are ending their lives

Euthanasia has become so common that families have begun scheduling it like momentous events. Relatives gather for dinners and parties before the individual dies, often in the same house.

One app called “Be Ceremonial” boasts that it “helps you create a Medical Assistance in Dying ceremony by choosing from our library of curated rituals to acknowledge your unique experience.”

And a podcast called Disrupting Death has suggested that MAID should be normalized in the minds of children through practices like a “pajama party at a funeral home” or “painting a coffin in a schoolyard,” The Atlantic reported.

All of this has led to a rapidly growing number of people seeking to end their lives. As mentioned above, euthanasia now accounts for approximately one in every 20 deaths in Canada, making it the fifth leading cause of death in the country.

In 2018, government officials projected that the rate of MAID would reach a “steady state” of 2 percent of total deaths. After blowing past that projection, in 2022, they revised and said the rate would stabilize at 4 percent of total deaths by 2033.

Sadly, the rate has already shattered this new projection. But instead of addressing this problem, Canadian officials just stopped publishing projections altogether. Euthanasia already accounts for 7 percent of deaths in the province of Quebec—a rate that officials previously said could be “concerning” and “wise and prudent to look into” if reached nationwide.

But now that Canada has opened Pandora’s box, it will be extremely difficult to put more restrictions on euthanasia. Etienne Montero, the former president of the European Institute of Bioethics, made this point when discussing Belgium’s euthanasia law that was passed more than two decades ago.

“Unfortunately, this law gains more social acceptance as time goes by,” Montero said. “Although the law originated on the basis of applying euthanasia in a controlled manner, today it’s out of control…It’s utterly delusional to try to control a law that now depends entirely on the patient’s wishes.”

Standing up to a culture of death

It is impossible not to notice the similarities between the euthanasia debate and the abortion debate. The line used by one euthanasia proponent—“Don’t access this choice if you don’t want—but stay away from my death bed”—is eerily similar to the “my body, my choice” mantra often parroted by abortion activists.

This is not a coincidence. When, in the name of “autonomy” and “choice,” Western culture radically devalues human life at its beginning, it stands to reason that we would also start to do so at its end.

Thankfully, though Canada’s government has failed to protect life, many Canadians are seeking to provide hope amid the darkness of state-sponsored death. Canadian life advocate Amanda Achtman is doing just that through her project Dying to Meet You. Aiming to “humanize our conversation on suffering, death, meaning, and hope,” Achtman facilitates conversations about euthanasia and assisted suicide.  Dying to Meet You provides a platform for voices that often go unheard in the debate about assisted suicide and euthanasia. Achtman conducts interviews, appears on podcasts, and organizes events to discuss the beauty of life and the importance of valuing it from beginning to end.

While advocates like Achtman are doing important work to change hearts and minds, we know at Alliance Defending Freedom that changing unjust laws is another worthy goal. 

We achieved an important victory in California, protecting doctors from being forced to participate in assisted suicide against their beliefs.

ADF also played a role, alongside its wonderful state partners in Mississippi, in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a monumental win that has already allowed states to affirm that life is a human right and ensure women have real support. And we continue to defend pro-life pregnancy centers and their right to provide care to women and families in their communities without facing government harassment.

Whether in Canada, the U.S., or any other country, the value of human life and human dignity must be protected. ADF will continue to defend every person’s right to life, from conception to natural death.