n the less than seven years since assisted death became legal across Canada, its scope has dramatically expanded in a manner that many Canadians find deeply troubling. In a newspaper op-ed published last May, I called assisted death in Canada a “runaway train.” For the most part, I still subscribe to that view, though I also believe there is an emerging consensus across ideological lines that we need to get this train back on track. And the federal government appears to be listening. In recent weeks, it legislated a one year delay in the enactment of provisions that would allow assisted death “in circumstances where the sole underlying medical condition identified in support of the request for medical assistance in dying is a mental illness.” …

A few months ago, a representative from the Quebec College of Physicians told a parliamentary committee studying the future of assisted death that the practice should be expanded to include infants with severe illnesses. Such a step would not only render what is currently considered infanticide legal in some cases, it would also mark an official abandonment of consent as a guardrail in the provision of assisted death, given that newborns and infants cannot meaningfully consent to death.

Moreover, the same parliamentary committee recently recommended that “mature minors” should be eligible for assisted death, and that certain Canadians should be able to provide consent to assisted death before they actually experience the medical circumstances and suffering that would render them eligible to die in this way. And so Canada is at a critical juncture: As the practice is further and further expanded on various fronts, it will naturally become more difficult to explain why the practice shouldn’t simply be granted to anyone who wants to end his or her life, no matter their reason or circumstances.

[Remember when we warned about this very slippery slope when Canada moved to legalize MAID in 2016? There is no intellectual boundary that can be erected to stop the slide once one concedes the point on suicide as a social good. — Ed]