OPINION:
Our neighbor to the north provides a cautionary note on the dangers of euthanasia.
Canada adopted its Medical Assistance in Dying program a decade ago. As its June 17 anniversary approaches, the country is on pace to exceed 100,000 euthanasia deaths since it enacted the legislation. Ottawa’s most recent data shows that the state euthanized 15,767 Canadians in 2024 — 5.1% of all deaths in the nation that year. About 45 Canadians are being euthanized daily.
An 84-year-old woman recently disclosed that when she was brought to the Vancouver General Hospital with intense back pain, the first doctor she saw in the emergency room offered to euthanize her.
MAID has no waiting period, and the procedure can be requested by a patient or a relative.
In one case, a woman was killed after she withdrew her request when her husband and caregiver requested it again on her behalf.
In 2023, 65 patients in the province of Ontario died the same day a request was made, and another 154 the following day.
Why the unseemly haste? Do medical authorities fear giving patients a chance to change their minds?
Kiano Vafaeian, 26, who had Type 1 diabetes and suffered from seasonal depression, was approved for the suicide procedure and euthanized on Dec. 30 in British Columbia.
His family is calling for reforms to MAID.
“We never thought there would be a chance that any doctor would approve a 22- or 23-year-old at that time for MAID because of diabetes or blindness,” mother Margarat Marsilla, of Ontario, told Fox News Digital.
Unlike Canada, the United States does not have active euthanasia. Yet 14 states have a version of doctor-assisted suicide, where a physician prescribes a lethal dose that is self-administered.
As Canada shows, the slippery slope is very real. In a 2024 Gallup poll, 71% of Americans said doctors should be “allowed by law to end a patient’s life by some painless means if the patient and his family want it.”
What about competence, informed consent and a waiting period?
Once the law is in place, the so-called safeguards can be stripped away.
With an aging population, fiscal considerations pose a very real danger. That is when physicians become hit men.
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