If you want to glimpse Britain\u2019s potential dark future, look west to Canada. <\/p>\n
In 2016, Canada legalised Medical Assistance in Dying<\/a> (MAID) for the terminally ill. MAID was sold as a state-controlled solution to suffering, and came with all the usual reassurances that it was intended only for the dying, the desperate, and those with few other alternatives. Ten years on, it\u2019s a machine for death<\/a>. <\/p>\n Now, people with chronic illness, disability or even depression can be legally euthanised via MAID. Soon, those with any mental illness will qualify. Minors could be next. If any \u2018safeguards\u2019 existed, they have long since dissolved.<\/p>\n If Keir Starmer\u2019s government gets its way, Britain could be in line for its own ill-defined, industrial-scale assisted-suicide policy. After all, Canada\u2019s campaigners started from a suspiciously similar place to their UK counterparts, who insist that assisted suicide is about empathy and agency. Look where things ended up.<\/p>\n In 2022<\/a>, 13,241 Canadians died through MAID. That\u2019s 4.1 per cent of all annual deaths. The UK equivalent would be around 30,000 deaths<\/a> a year. A third of Canadians who sought MAID cited \u2018being a burden<\/a>\u2019 among their reasons for wanting to die. If we follow Canada\u2019s lead, there is a danger that vulnerable and elderly people, as well as those with disabilities, will feel obliged to consider assisted suicide so as to relieve pressure on their loved ones. This is not so much a clear-headed \u2018choice\u2019 as an escape hatch from shame.<\/p>\n One recent case<\/a> says it all. Kiano Vafaeian, a 26-year-old blind man, sought euthanasia while suffering from what his family described as \u2018seasonal depression\u2019. After being rejected by several doctors, Vafaeian turned to Dr Ellen Wiebe, a notoriously prolific practitioner of MAID who claims to have helped over 500 patients die. Wiebe allegedly \u2018coached\u2019 him on how to qualify as a \u2018Track Two\u2019 patient \u2013 that is, the programme for patients whose natural death isn\u2019t deemed \u2018reasonably imminent\u2019. News of Vafaeian\u2019s death only reached his parents days later. Apparently, the system couldn\u2019t give him the support he needed to get through his depression, but it could give him a lethal injection. A policy sold as \u2018compassionate\u2019 resulted in a young man ending his life at 26, with the help of the state.<\/p>\n Enjoying spiked?<\/p>\n Why not make an instant, one-off donation?<\/p>\n We are funded by you. Thank you!<\/p>\n \n \u00a35 Choose an amount<\/p>\n \n Donate now\n <\/p>\n \n Please wait… <\/p>\n Canada is still sliding down the slippery slope. In 2021<\/a>, the requirement that death be \u2018reasonably foreseeable\u2019 for candidates to qualify for MAID was quietly dropped. From March<\/a> next year, those suffering solely from mental-health problems will be eligible. The government is already consulting on whether it should include \u2018mature minors<\/a>\u2019 and babies<\/a> as possible candidates for euthanasia.<\/p>\n Tellingly, a 2017 study in Canada\u2019s leading medical journal<\/a> proudly highlighted that premature deaths from MAID could save as much as $138.8million annually in healthcare spending alone. It is difficult to imagine a more dystopian venture than calculating the cost efficiency of euthanising citizens. <\/p>\n Even more concerning is the turnaround in public attitudes to MAID. A 2023 poll<\/a> found that 27 per cent of Canadians support assisted dying for people in poverty, and 28 per cent for those who are homeless. <\/p>\n Britain is by no means immune to this. The Dignity in Dying campaign<\/a> \u2013 alongside MP Kim Leadbeater and Labour peer Charlie Falconer, who are sponsoring the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill \u2013 is pushing for assisted suicide to be forced through parliament, without the usual scrutiny. Falconer is even willing to resort to the Parliament Acts<\/a> to ensure the bill bypasses the House of Lords \u2013 a mechanism that has never before been used for a Private Member\u2019s Bill<\/a>. Centuries of legal protections could soon be wiped away.<\/p>\n For now, the British public is not sold. Polling<\/a> shows that support for assisted dying plummets when people learn how far the policy would really go. Initially, many assume it\u2019s about easing the final hours of pain. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s about giving the state power to facilitate death long before it would have naturally occurred.<\/p>\n Canada is currently living through that reality. A Veterans Affairs Canada caseworker was found to have offered MAID to veterans seeking help for PTSD<\/a>, instead of the therapy they need. The veterans department even advised Christine Gauthier, retired corporal and former Paralympian<\/a>, to consider ending her life when she requested a wheelchair ramp for her home. Clearly, MAID does not offer \u2018autonomy\u2019 in the way our well-off, comfortable and able-bodied politicians would have us believe.<\/p>\n
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