MAiD is generating plenty of other collateral damage, too. Some relatives are anguished when they learn that their parents, siblings, or even adult children had requested or received MAiD, and no one ever told them. (Authorities say that privacy laws prevent them from disclosing this information.) We also know that some people who have received approval for MAiD end up torturing themselves about whether to go through with it, scheduling and de-scheduling death dates as they weigh the misery of their existence against the prospect of personal annihilation. For many of these people, their primary form of suffering isn’t physical. It’s social and psychological: feelings of loneliness, boredom, helplessness, and depression. Are those sufficient reasons to indulge a wish for state-assisted death?
The implications of loosening the MAiD regime’s eligibility rules frighten me profoundly. Canada, like the rest of the world, is full of people who are sad, isolated, and/or disabled. Sooner or later, you and I may well be among their ranks (if you aren’t already), along with many of the people we love.
Of course, we want to control our fates. But there is something unsettlingly overeager about those stepping forward to expand the reach of this ghoulish (to many) form of medical therapy. Do we really want to be treated—and to treat others—as if humans were disposable? What happens when passing bouts of loneliness and sadness really are all that are formally required for a state-assisted death, with care providers casually offering to sign a depressed patient’s death warrant after he or she has completed a short form on a clipboard?
[That which starts as a personal choice ultimately evolves into an expectation — especially when it provides an alternative for the state to providing care. That’s exactly what is happening in Canada. And it’s precisely what we *predicted* would happen in Canada, too. — Ed]
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